


courting the end of the world

by faerie_ground



Category: The Mummy (1999), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Mummy Fusion, Angst and Humor, F/F, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Protective Charles Xavier, Protective Erik Lehnsherr, this is basically a mummy au with charles as evy and erik as rick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerie_ground/pseuds/faerie_ground
Summary: “You honestly thought there would be nothing wrong,” Erik growls, “with reading out incantations from a book literally titled Book of the Dead.”“Well, when you put it like that,” Charles says weakly. “Look, you didn’t stop me either!”*Or Erik is a hapless ex-soldier hunting his mother's killer down, Charles is a professor, and together they accidentally raise the worst sort of mummy they could possibly raise.
Relationships: Charles Xavier/Other(s), Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Irene Adler (X-Men)/Raven | Mystique
Comments: 46
Kudos: 69





	1. part i: the journey

**Author's Note:**

> this all started because i went down a rabbit hole re watching the mummy movies, got way way too unhealthily obsessed and thought to myself hey what if erik was rick and charles was evy that would be so fun. also big big thanks to syd (hellfre on tumblr!) for beta-ing this and also putting up with my dms on twitter about how this became progressively more and more monstrous. syd thank u for putting up with my ass im so sorry
> 
> by order of characters  
> erik = rick  
> charles = evy  
> raven = jonathan  
> irene = ardeth (sexy egyptian man from the mummy except this time she's a milf)  
> apocalypse = imhotep  
> selene gallio = anck su namun
> 
> this is also rated mature because there's gonna be gore as is typical with the mummy movies, and also if u know the storyline of the original mummy movie you'd know there's some weird stuff that will go on between en sabah nur and charles. as of yet tho no trigger warnings for this chapter

**_Erik_ **

Erik doesn’t know how it all started. Maybe it was when his insane sergeant had started rambling about imaginary cities, treasures of gold and cursed incantations. Maybe it was when trickles of rumours had started pouring down about the higher ups wanting to investigate unfound territory, disregard the Egyptian government’s feelings on the matter, and put a previously unfound myth on the map for all the world to see. Or maybe, Erik thinks, it was when archaeologist Klaus Schmidt put a bullet through his mother’s head and he ended up going to America armed with dual citizenship and the sole intent of wanting to drive a coin directly between Schmidt’s eyes, joining a division of the American military focused solely on guarding archaeological digs- more importantly, in Egypt, where Schmidt’s interest had shifted.

Either way, Erik certainly hadn’t envisioned  _ this-  _ running down the scorching plains of the desert amidst the crumbling pillars of what had been previously an undiscovered city, now… well, discovered. His sergeant had been pleased for an approximate span of two seconds before getting his head sawed off by the men in robes that are now trying to kill them- and Erik, by extension. 

A spray of bullets hits the sand by Erik’s feet causing him to run faster, dashing over to a pillar and reloading his rifle. He waits, taking stock of himself- definitely cracked ribs, a sluggishly bleeding wound by his thigh  _ and  _ he’s surrounded on all sides, but he’s faced worse odds before and came out superior for it. He’ll be able to come out on top for this, too.

There’s the rush of pounding feet on sand, and Erik raises his hand, feeling out the metal before crushing it into a fist and hearing the men yell with a satisfied grin. He floats the rifle with his other hand, firing off bullets. There’s a lull and he decides to poke his head out, cursing and withdrawing again as the bullets shot nearly take his head off. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,  _ fuck,” _ Erik mutters, dashing off across the sand to another hopefully covered part of the crumbling ruins that made up Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead. All this for a scrapyard of a city- the buildings weren’t even all that impressive. Erik could easily find prettier ones by closing his head and jabbing his finger on the map of Egypt. 

He comes to a stop in front of a humongous pillar with ancient carvings, topped off with the head of Anubis and yells out, covering his head as two bullets sail over his head. See if he ever listens to any of his insane sergeants again, he thinks sullenly, this is bordering on ridiculous. He turns back to see that the men in the robes have cornered him against the pillar, all of them having clearly removed the metal from their robes expeditiously. He’s essentially at a dead end, cornered on all sides, wall against his back and death in front of him.

Still, Erik Lehnsherr has faced worse odds and survived. Erik Lehnsherr will not go from this Earth without having brought the head of Klaus Schmidt to his mother’s grave.

He floats the rifle to point at them, the three metal balls in his pocket floating out and sharpening into three spears. “I can do this all day,” Erik snarls. 

That’s when it happens. The sand beneath his feet starts to move, a strange whistling of wind in his ears. The men in robes shout out some words in a language Erik has never heard before, and turn, running off with a speed that leaves Erik coughing in their dust.

“What the fuck,” Erik says blankly, and then the sand moves beneath Erik’s feet again, so much so that he’s yelping out curses, moving away from the shifting sand to stand at the opposite end of the clearing. He faces the pillar and stares. The face of Anubis is still, that’s true enough, but it also feels alive- emerald eyes glittering in a glare that feels heated and uncannily real. The sand is shifting again, in waves that grow wider and wider, licking at Erik’s boots. The whistling of the wind grows stronger, whipping at his shirt and stinging his wounds with grains of sand, nearly taking his feet off. There’s a strange murmuring too, again in that language the men in robes had been speaking in.

Erik Lehnsherr has faced some truly incredible odds in his life and survived. Erik Lehnsherr also recognises that none of these odds had included a strange pillar in a previously unknown city that seems to come alive with a life that feels surreal, the very energy around it crackling with a force that feels almost sinister and approaching the wrong side of perilous, and that’s when Erik Lehnsherr very wisely decides to beat it.

  
  


**_Charles_ **

“I’ve found something,” Raven announces, stepping into the study.

“Found something?” Charles asks, frowning as he adjusts his glasses. He’d long promised not to read Raven’s mind but he can sense the anticipation that’s pouring out of her in waves even with his shields up. It’s making him slightly apprehensive- whatever the reason for it, it can’t be any good. “Or nicked it from someone?” 

“The absurdly little faith you have in me is absolutely heartbreaking and you should know that,” Raven informs him, flouncing into the study and throwing herself into the chair opposite him, placing her feet on the desk and disturbing the fragile stack of papers that had been placed with the utmost care. At his glare she rolls her eyes and removes her feet, amending, “Fine, I stole it from someone. I’m serious, though- this looks  _ amazing _ , like all those stupid fossil things you keep looking over like a complete nerd.”

“If you stole it, we really should return it,” Charles says, frowning as he sets aside the essays he’d been marking. All horrendous, obviously- god forbid any of his students actually put in any work of their own into the assignments he set for them. As Raven pouts at him, shifting into the form of a little girl with pigtails and comically wide eyes, Charles sighs. “Alright, hand it over- let’s have a go at it.”

He sits up in surprise, though, the second Raven reaches into her pocket and brings it out. It  _ is  _ something, alright- a shiny metal box with ancient hieroglyphs and symbols carved on the sides, deep markings that feel ancient and otherworldly once he touches his hands to them. It feels heated on the palm of his hand, something an inanimate object should not be capable of. That, or Raven had been sitting on it for some time. “Where did you  _ get  _ this?” Charles asks, amazed. He turns the box over in his hand, fiddling with the top.

“Customer at the bar today. Seemed intent on drinking his weight in gin and tonic,” Raven says, waving her hand airily. “Look, I even stole his wallet too to even it out.” 

Raven had been very displeased when Charles had accepted a tenured position with the department of Archaeology over at Cairo University. The move to Egypt from Westchester had been a great source of unrest for her, more so because Charles had been yanking her away from her friends. They’d had more than a few reasons to move to Egypt, however- first and foremost, Cain and Kurt, and then his mother’s death evaporating the last of his ties to the draughty mansion in Westchester. Raven had fitted in anyway by working nights at the bar down the street from their lodgings on campus, stealing occasionally from the customers to eventually find something to make a fortune out of despite Charles’ numerous pointed remarks about her filching habit. It seemed that this time, she’d actually succeeded.

Charles turns the box over, fitting his fingers into a few grooves at the top of it and widening his eyes in amazement when it opens with a click, a rolled up map tucked in the inside of it. He picks it out, Raven gasping as she reaches over to smooth her fingers at the edge of the map. 

“I’ve found something, haven’t I? I’ve found something!”

“I don’t think-” Charles begins, and then deflates when Raven bounces in her seat, eyes practically sparkling with excitement. “I think you just might have,” he says gently instead, smiling when she whoops in pure glee. He presses out the curved edges of the map again, running his finger across the wrinkles and reading the words written out at the bottom right of it.  _ The Lost City of Hamunaptra.  _ The myth that everyone said was built on smoke and shadow, all an elaborately crafted lie to lead tourists nowhere- and yet, if it was indeed just that, Charles wouldn’t have a map for it lying right there in his hands.

“Listen, I’ll show this to Moira from work and we’ll see where we go, alright?”

*

Moira McTaggart had been the very reason he’d even managed to make the switch from Westchester to Egypt, writing to him about a position in the department of Archaeology that had just opened and begging Charles to come over. Strangely enough, though, she’s more than a little reticent as she inspects the map, a frown to her mouth.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says finally, handing it back to Charles. “It’s a myth. More than a myth- it’s a lie, passed down by generations to be nothing more than a fairytale. It doesn’t exist.”

“But-” Charles gapes at her, as both of them and Raven sit at a table in the library of the University- Raven having begged off her shift at the bar to tag along with Charles for more details on her very important find. “Moira, come on- I’ve matched the hieratics myself! It clearly spells out Hamunaptra, that city everyone says is stocked to the brim full of the treasures the Pharaohs of the old kingdom owned for themselves.”

“Treasure?” Raven pipes up, looking far too interested. Moira leans back, her face cold and placid in the face of Charles’ words. 

Charles nods, gesturing at the map. “It was rigged to sink into the sand dunes by the Pharaoh’s hand, and then it mysteriously disappeared around 2000 BC. I didn’t believe in it before either, but there’s a map for it. It  _ has _ to exist.” He sends Raven a reassuring glance and Raven smiles back, bolstered by the credibility of her find.

“Maybe you were mistaken,” Moira says lightly, as she holds the map closer to the glass of water that’s sitting by it. Her lips are pressed tight in the sort of obstinate look Charles has seen far too many times to know she’s not about to budge. “Charles, really. I think you’d have known better than to believe in an old wives’ tale.” 

“I do know better,” Charles says, frowning back at her. It’s unlike Moira to be this reticent, unwilling to at least accompany Charles on a tangent of his. He stretches his telepathy out, gently dipping into the ordered neatness that is Moira’s mind only to find a repeated mantra, said out over and over again with the typical concentration people use to throw telepaths off their trail.  _ Don’t go to Hamunaptra. Don’t go to Hamunaptra. Don’t go to Hamunaptra.  _ “I’m telling you, the hieratics match-”

The hand holding the map knocks into the glass of water, and the bottom half of it abruptly gets soaked, the print already blurring.

“My map!” Raven yelps, as Charles snatches it from Moira immediately, attempting to soak up the water stains with his sleeve. Raven jumps up, her face twisted in a look of fury. If she does attempt to deck Moira, Charles thinks sourly, Charles will not stop her. “What the  _ fuck,  _ Moira-”

“It’s for the best,” Moira says stiffly, as she gathers her books in one hand, standing up from the table and making her way out of the library. “Many men have tried and failed to find that city, and perished in the attempt.” She pauses beside a bookshelf, turning on her heel to glare at them both so forebodingly Charles finds himself taking a step back. “Promise me, both of you. I can’t lose the best member of this faculty to a damned myth.”

Raven is frowning at his side, lips downturned in a pout and eyebrows scrunched together in disappointment. Even if she hadn’t been upset, so taken in by the lure of hidden treasure and adventure, Charles is a goner anyway. The flames of curiosity have been set alight within him, making him eager to set about and find this city that is as doomed as Moira explains it to be, find the treasures within one of which contains the Book of the Living- a book made of pure gold. That mystery, that curiosity had been the whole reason why Charles had even entered the realm of archaeology, anyway, even with an abiding interest in genetics- the lure of the unknown, the undiscovered and the hidden is far too seductive for Charles to even think about anything otherwise. Moira has forbidden him from finding that city- well, it’s a lost cause from the start. The nerves beneath Charles’ skin practically itch with the need to start walking now, start finding where this secretive city is located. 

He’s already making plans on how to find this city with the aid of a soggy map- first things first would be finding that customer Raven had stolen it from. Thank the gods for Raven being overly enthusiastic and stealing his wallet, Charles reflects, something he had never thought he’d be thanking any god for.

“Of course, Moira,” Charles says finally, stepping on Raven’s foot when she opens her mouth to complain. “When have I ever broken any of my promises?” He stretches out a hand to lean against the bookshelf to his right- and then snaps it back and watches, aghast, as the apparently flimsy bookshelf topples over and knocks the rest of the bookshelves in succession.

All three of them stare at the carnage that results in the aftermath of what once used to be a neat and ordered library of Cairo University, the mess of cracked wooden bookshelves and torn books and ripped up carpets. 

“Sometimes I rue the day I ever thought to send you that letter asking you to come over,” Moira says heavily, rubbing a hand over her face.  _ “Run,  _ you lot.”

  
  


**_Erik_ **

Cairo prison is a nightmare. 

It’s filthy, dirty, and Erik’s ribs are already smarting from how they’d taken a beating by the rotten bastards who rule this slice of hell. He shouldn’t even be there, Erik thinks as he kicks at the sands, despair sinking low in his gut. All those years hunting Schmidt down, and it might end like this- him getting hung in a low grade prison with a tendency to imprison anyone and everyone.

He technically- very technically- hadn’t even  _ done  _ anything wrong. All he’d done was stab the man who’d been helping to fund Shaw’s activities to return to Hamunaptra, after extracting intel from him. How was he supposed to know that the man had been close buddies with the very scumbag who ran this prison? He would have gotten away, too, if it hadn’t been for them injecting him with a tranquilizer. He’d woken up with guards surrounding him on all sides, the usual metal on his person a far distant speck.

As it stands now, Erik is definitely headed for the gallows- and without Shaw’s blood on his hands, too. He kicks out at the sands again and curses foully in German, ignoring the guard who barks at him to shut up. 

The door to his cell room- if it can even be called that, seeing as it resembles a few straws and bamboo sticks on the brink of collapse- suddenly opens, another guard storming through. “Guests here to see you, mutant scum,” the guard snaps, yanking him to his feet with rattan rope around his neck. He tries to headbutt one anyway, and gets punched in the stomach for his trouble. 

The guards bring him to the bars of his cell room, and he presses his bruised face against the bamboo sticks, squinting. From his vantage point he can barely make out two people talking to the asshole who’d tossed Erik into prison. One of them is clearly young, brilliant red hair tucked into a cap and blue scales shimmering all over, a strange sight of beauty that’s common in this part of Egypt and yet unique, drawing leers and wolf whistles from the other cells. The other one-

Erik blinks. The other man is absolutely stunning in an altogether different manner- flyaway chestnut brown hair tucked into his own cap and brilliant blue eyes that seem to shine at even such a distance. As Erik continues to watch, slightly more interested in the proceedings now, the man reaches up to take the cap off, running his fingers through his hair with the affectation of someone painfully oblivious to his own impact on the people around him. 

They’re a beautiful pair. More importantly, though, Erik tells his twisting insides sternly, they are also a pair that’s unfamiliar and therefore have no logical reason to be even talking to Erik, unless-

“...is he in for?” the man is asking in a clear English accent- not a local, then- as they finally approach the cell. He’s clearly nervous, hands twisting as he comes to a stop in front of Erik. Erik drinks in his fill unashamedly, letting his eyes rove over every inch of the man’s figure and then smirks when he realises that the man’s doing the same, except with a great deal more apprehension. It’s always nice, he reflects, to be assured that he still has the Lehnsherr charm. What little there is of it, anyway. 

“Murder,” the asshole spits, and Erik snarls at him. 

“Oh, dear,” the man says nervously, flattening his hair and then fixing the rotten bastard with a look. “Well, I was promised my two minutes with him, so if you’ll please-”

“What’s in it for me?” the asshole jeers, face disfiguring himself into a perverted sneer that makes bile automatically climb up Erik’s throat, and the man grimaces. Before Erik can do something like punch out at his guards and defend this man’s honour- very heroically, Erik might add- the man sighs and rubs his fingers over his temples like he’s having a headache. The scumbag turns on his heel instantly, leaving, and Erik blinks for a second before realising what’s just happened. 

A telepath, then. Erik draws his shields up tight and notices the man flinch almost violently, his eyes narrowing. 

“Apologies,” the man says, bending down slightly. His eyes really are as blue as Erik had made them out to be, across the grounds of the prison- almost ethereal in how they shine, like two bright spots of flame. And then they harden as they look him over, glimmering slightly with arrogance. “I’m not in the business of consorting with criminals, usually.”

Erik arches an eyebrow, as he hears the girl curse,  _ “Jesus,  _ Charles, was that really necessary?” 

“You don’t look like the type to do any consorting in general,” Erik says, because he’s going to give as good as he gets if he’s really about to be condescended to while on death’s damn row, “but you’re not a total loss, I suppose.”

The man bristles in indignation, eyes widening in irritation and looking even more gorgeous as a result. Behind him, the girl stifles a giggle behind her mouth. 

“I’m Professor Charles Xavier, and this is my sister, Raven,” the man says finally, getting straight to the point. “Look, we won’t take up too much of your time- we just wanted to ask about your box.”

_ The box.  _ Of course they have it, Erik thinks as his eyes slide over to the girl who now looks slightly sheepish. She must have pickpocketed him somewhere. Alarm settles into his stomach, alongside what feels like the first stirrings of hope. 

His eyes return to the professor. He really didn’t look like someone in the habit of searching for imaginary cities- one hour travelling the plains of the desert would swallow him up and crush him whole. “I didn’t know you were in the business of hunting down legends,” Erik says, opting for the purposefully obtuse. 

Xavier’s eyes narrow, as he uses his hands to brush back a lock of hair that had drifted into his eyes. The movement is casual and yet, it makes Erik’s throat go dry. “And I didn’t know you were in the business of lying,” he retorts. 

“I’m not,” Erik grins, relishing in the way Xavier’s hackles visibly rise even more. “You aren’t really interested in the box, are you? You’re interested in Hamunaptra.”

“And how do you know about Hamunaptra?” Xavier asks, but his voice is no longer arrogant or condescending- instead, it’s interested, as he goes down on his knees near the bar, eyes alight with curiosity. Erik can’t figure out if this is worse, the clear yearning for knowledge written into every freckle and every emotion on the man’s face. 

Erik doesn’t want to return to Hamunaptra but he’s not an idiot- Hamunaptra is where Schmidt will be heading. And wherever Schmidt is heading, Erik is sure to follow. 

“I was there, posh boy,” he says, relishing in the way Xavier rears back, shocked. “Right there, in Seti’s place. City of the Dead, they say. They’d be right, you know. Nothing waits but death.” Erik is intimately familiar with death, but there’s no reason for Xavier to be so as well. Something in Erik shrivels as he thinks of this curious, bright-eyed man meeting his end in the sands of that cursed place. 

And yet, he’s not above using Xavier to meet his own ends. 

“Can you lead us, then?” Xavier asks. He leans against the bars, biting down on his bottom lip, lush and full, and meeting Erik’s gaze head on. 

“Come a little closer, posh boy,” Erik says, grinning, and when Xavier does, his breaths coming in short puffs, Erik grabs his chin and kisses him full on the mouth. It’s just as soft and sweet as it looks, he realises, opening up under him with the shock of being taken by surprise. 

Erik withdraws back, just as the guards take hold of him by the arms. “A deal, posh boy,” he says, grinning rakishly, as Xavier stares back at him, eyes wide and dazed and mouth agape. “Get me out, and I’ll take you to your riches.”

  
  


**_Charles_ **

“He kissed you,” Raven says, stunned from behind Charles, as Charles brings a hand to his mouth in shock. His lips feel kiss-swollen, stung and over sensitive. One kiss from that smirking rogue of a man, all sharp angles and devilishly handsome veneer, and he’d been gone. God, he thinks in irritation, turning to face the prison warden. He’d never been this easy. 

“He kissed you,” Raven repeats, as if in a daze. “Oh my god, he actually-”

“I know, Raven,” Charles says loudly. What a gorgeous, irritating, infuriating, good looking,  _ galling  _ man. Charles feels the urge to stomp his foot in anger. “Where are they taking him?” he asks the warden. 

“To be hanged,” the warden says, and sneers. “Filthy little criminal, he’ll hang for murder.”

That won’t do at all. Murderer he may be- intensely annoying he  _ definitely  _ is- but Charles needs him to get to the city. Casting a glance around, he lifts his fingers to his temple again. “Call it off,” he says, planting the suggestion deep into the man’s mind. “You’ve changed your mind, it’s too much trouble and he’s someone important.”

The warden blinks, and then wanders off. Charles stares after him, wondering if this is indeed the right decision. He’d expected Erik Lehnsherr to be some drunkard, easily broken out. He hadn’t expected Erik Lehnsherr to smirk at him, to set his blood racing and then grab him by the chin and kiss his mouth like he was a drowning man grasping at straws. 

That may have been the best kiss of his life. Charles feels a little like drowning himself. 

“It’s not like you to be that flippant with using your telepathy,” Raven says from beside him as they follow the Warden’s footsteps, something knowing in her voice. “It’s something else- something other than the treasure map.”

Charles hesitates. Raven is bang on the dollar, as usual- there  _ is  _ something else about Erik Lehnsherr, something wildly different. Non-psionics don’t get it, how the flavour of each person differs according to what their mind feels like. Lehnsherr, Charles knows for sure now, has the most beautiful mind he has ever come across- all ordered chaos, a chilling dark fortress with perfectly tabulated memories locked away, cleverness and sharpness creating an aura that feels so addictive, so powerful that even a second of experiencing it before Lehnsherr had abruptly brought his shields up had been heavenly. 

Raven can’t ever know that, though. Lehnsherr, unfortunately is in fact still a criminal, even if they’re breaking said criminal out. 

“You need to give him his wallet back,” he says instead, as they step into a clearing that’s evidently been designated as the area where hangings will take place. They’re lifting the noose back off Lehnsherr, whose face is red, a line of bruises around his throat. Despite all that though, there’s still that infuriating smirk on his face. 

“I spent the money in it already, there’s no use,” Raven starts to say, and then relents at Charles’ look. “Fine, fine!”

Lehnsherr jogs back towards them, eyebrows arched in incredulity. He really is far too good looking for his own good, Charles thinks, inspecting the thick beard lining his jaw, the green of his eyes that looks pale under the sunlight, but even more starkly gorgeous for it. Charles’ mouth abruptly tingles again, in remembrance of the kiss, and he flushes a bright red, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

“So,” Lehnsherr says, coming to a stop and eyeing the both of them. “How did you manage it, then?”

Charles wiggles his fingers next to his temples. “Telepath,” he says, carefully watching Lehnsherr for any reaction. Lehnsherr had brought up his shields insanely fast back then- well, it’s not like Charles isn’t used to anti-psionic sentiment. “Is there going to be an issue, Lehnsherr?”

Lehnsherr peers at him for a long moment, and then says, “Not from me, no. I’m a metallokinetic.” He looks at Raven, his eyebrow rising again. “My wallet?”

Raven huffs, taking it out and dropping it in his hand. She’d clearly been expecting to get away with it. “I’m keeping the box, though,” she says, lifting her chin. 

“I expect nothing less,” Lehnsherr says, rolling his eyes. “Touch my wallet again and I’ll kill you.” He strides off, leaving dust in his wake and Charles and Raven gaping after him. 

Charles recovers first, feeling a little bit like he’s been clobbered over the head. “Oh, for- hold on!” Charles yells, running after him. “Hold on- Lehnsherr! When do we start?”

Lehnsherr stops in his tracks and turns his head to the side. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Pack up and meet me at the docks, there’s a boat ride that will take us close enough. We’ll go the rest of the way by camelback. And really,” he turns fully and grins at Charles, winking. “No need to stand on formality. Call me Erik, posh boy.”

“Call me Charles,” Charles says, unsmiling, crossing his arms. Beautiful mind notwithstanding, Erik is going to be a pain in the arse for him. Charles will be spending this entire trip wanting to take his head off. “You’ll be at the docks?”

“We made a deal, Charles,” Erik says, and shrugs. “I keep my deals.” He disappears down the steps, the very picture of panther-like, dangerous grace, with both Charles and Raven staring after him. 

“He sure is someone,” Raven says faintly. 

“A piece of work is what he is,” Charles mutters. “A complete, a complete rascal-”

“And yet,” Raven interjects, amused, as she links arms with him while they descend the steps of the prison together, “don’t think I didn’t notice you pressing your mouth with your hand- yeah, just like that, see?” Charles lowers his hand guiltily and pulls Raven in the direction of their apartment, Raven’s cackling continuing to echo in his ears. 

*

They spend the rest of the day making their separate calls to arrange for affairs after they leave. Charles has to spend a good few hours fielding questions from his students, when he has to pop back into the university to take one last class. His students, god bless them, are an overenthusiastic lot, all convinced he’s off on a great adventure even after he repeatedly reassures them he’s really going back to Westchester to see his mother. A half lie, seeing as his mother is indeed back at Westchester- just six feet under, instead.

Moira is significantly more difficult to persuade off his trail. 

“I’m not sure I believe this story about an ailing mother,” she says, folding her arms and leaning against the door to Charles’ office. “So you’re telling me you’re leaving the issue of that map well alone?” Her mind is running wild with warnings, too fast for Charles to catch but two names pop up that make Charles frown- En Sabah Nur, and Selene Gallio.

“I’m not lying, Moira,” Charles says after a while, resolving to ask Erik about it and regretting his decision not to delve deeper into the history of Hamunaptra when he’d studied it all those years ago. “She’s ill, and I’m her son.” He nudges the box further into his book bag and straightens up with an apologetic smile. Moira simply frowns at him.

“No one has come back from Hamunaptra alive, Charles.” There’s a steel-like quality to her voice, in the hardness of her eyes. It’s as if she is- but that’s ridiculous. What would Moira have to hide? “No one has come  _ back _ from Hamunaptra, period.”

_ Then we will be the first.  _ Charles clears his throat, and slings his book bag over his shoulder, sending Moira a perfunctory smile. “That is of no importance to me.”

The next morning sees both Charles and Raven standing and waiting at the docks, Erik Lehnsherr nowhere in sight. “I thought he was coming,” Raven says, frowning. “I mean, we saved him and everything.”

“We shouldn’t have put that much stock in his word,” Charles mutters, feeling strangely let down. They’ll just have to go on that ship on Erik’s word, peruse that still ruined map and hopefully fumble their way there. A sad plan, but it’s the only one they have. “That filthy, rude-”

“Anyone I know?” A voice asks from behind them, and both of them turn. Erik’s standing there, hands clutching an overnight bag and with a rakish, shark-like grin on his face that’s more gorgeous than anything else. More so, though, he’s obviously cleaned up after his stint in prison, having arrived in a brown jacket and suspenders beneath that, trousers cinched around hips that should honestly feel criminal, the beard reduced to stubble. Charles looks at him and feels slightly breathless. 

“Hi,” Charles exhales, and then feels ridiculous for saying it.

Raven sends him a knowing look. “We’re still keeping the box, Lehnsherr, no matter how much of a hotshot you are. Hope you don’t mind.” She presses a kiss to Charles’ cheek and marches past them, swaggering up the ladder leading to the ship with both hands full of both Erik’s and Charles’ bags before they can do so much as cough. 

“Charming sister,” Erik says, staring after her with an inscrutable look.

“She gives me a heart attack half the time,” Charles mutters. “Listen, Erik- are you sure you can lead us to Hamunaptra? If you’re leading us on-” Erik steps up to him suddenly, their chests brushing together, and Charles chokes, his voice trailing off and the threat dying on his tongue.

“I watched my sergeant and my fellow black ops soldiers die defending this city,” he says, pale green eyes severe and intense. “And yet, I’m here. Like I said, I keep to my deals, Charles. I have a code of honour I follow.” His eyes rove over Charles’ face, searching for something, before he suddenly steps back. There’s that damnable grin again, small but no less insouciant, turning him into every inch of the dangerous criminal the warden had talked him up to be. 

“Have a little faith, posh boy,” he calls out as he walks backwards, and then he turns on his heel, jogging up the ladder. 

Charles sighs out a curse, scrubbing a hand over his face. Moira had been right, after all. He definitely isn’t coming back from this trip alive- just not for the reasons she probably expects him to be.

  
  


**_Erik_ **

Three days into the voyage, and Erik finds Shaw.

His suspicions had begun to grow with the presence of the other passengers- a few other natives all on their own separate ways, some included in the entourage led by three other Americans. “They’re heading for Hamunaptra too,” Raven informs them, after she comes to their room and presents her winnings, having cleaned them out. “Stryker, Kelly and Essex. Rather awfully rude lot, too.” She doesn’t sound too displeased as she dumps her winnings on the bed.

Charles, however, frowns from where he’d been seated in front of Erik, drawing his hand back from where he’d been about to move his bishop right into Erik’s trap. About an hour into the voyage and Erik had learned that Charles loves chess, as evidenced by some of the books in his case. 

Charles is- complicated. He’s a conundrum and a half, a mystery wrapped in more mystery even while he’s laid out plainly for everyone to see. His eyes invite everyone in, he makes small talk with the rest of the people on the ship, and yet it’s clear that he harbours more than a few secrets of his own. Erik wants to splay him out, learn them all one by one, and the ferocity with which he feels this urge shocks him. It certainly doesn’t help that he’s just as beautiful as when Erik had first seen him across the grounds of that prison, chestnut brown hair falling into his eyes which pierce everyone through, merciless. Not for the first time, it leaves Erik wondering if he’s made a tactical mistake, making this deal and flaying his own heart wide open. 

“Really, Raven,” he says now, pushing the winnings back towards his sister. “What have I told you about gambling? Honestly, it’s like animals raised you.”

_ “You  _ raised me,” Raven says, grinning. “Anyway, they’re also heading for Hamunaptra, they told me. Had a guide heading there and everything.”

Erik hums nonsensically, wincing as Charles moves his pawn instead and captures his bishop. He moves his own knight, raising an eyebrow when Charles curses utterly foully. “Never knew you had that in you, posh boy,” he says, impressed.

“You have to stop calling me posh boy,” Charles retorts, easily ruffled. Erik watches, amused as Charles rears up like a peacock whose feathers have been ruffled, hair almost going on end from how indignant he’s acting. “Gods’ sake, I’m not that posh-”

“Own an estate, don’t you? Posh boy,” he adds, laughing as Charles fumes.

“You two are unbelievable,” Raven mutters, eyeing them with a tired look. “They were acting rather high and mighty with them, so I made a deal with them. First group to Hamunaptra wins five hundred bucks from the other group.”

“What? I- Raven!” Charles almost knocks the whole board of chess pieces over as he turns to stare at Raven in shock, something which Erik can’t blame him for. He glares at Raven as well, halfway between disbelief and resignation. This is why, he thinks, you shouldn’t bring kids onto expeditions. “Honestly! What were you  _ thinking?” _

“I was thinking that we had the better guide!” Raven protests, gesturing at Erik. “He’s gonna get us there all in one piece,  _ and  _ quicker than the other group’s stupid guide! Also it’s a quick way to make cash, you can’t-”

“Raven, you are  _ absolutely _ unbelievable and I should have left you right back in Cairo!”

“You can’t do that, I found- well, stole- the treasure map-”

“The guide,” Erik interjects, frowning. These groups, if serious about the expedition, wouldn’t take on just anyone. They would be led by someone who’d been to Hamunaptra themselves. And Erik’s entire black ops regiment had perished in the deserted sands of the city, there had been no one left standing. The less said about the weeks Erik had spent wandering the desert, half dead on his feet and hallucinating about dead pharaohs, the better. “Who did they say he was?”

“Some guy called Sebastian Shaw,” Raven says, shrugging. “Funny name, if you ask me.”

_ Sebastian Shaw.  _ That’s what the man back in Cairo had said Klaus Schmidt now went by, before Erik had stuck a blade through his neck. A now American archaelogist, who’d somehow found his way to Hamunaptra and back, and now was headed there again with a group of explorers. Why had he not connected the dots before? Erik stands up, this time definitely knocking the chess board over. His heart is thundering, his entire face red hot from the anger he’s suddenly feeling.

“I need some air,” he says abruptly, ignoring the look of sudden concern on Charles’ face. “Excuse me.”

“Erik-” Charles reaches for him, beautiful features twisted into a frown, and Erik suddenly has the visceral urge to flee before he does something unforgivable like put his fist through a wall and scare Charles. Scaring Charles- that’s definitely unforgivable. He turns on his heel and runs from the room, banging the door shut behind him. The coin burns away in the pocket of his jacket, unmistakeable.

He bursts out into the balcony of the ship, leaning against the railing and popping a cigarette in his mouth. Letting the sea breeze whip at his face and fringe, he fumbles with his lighter until he manages to somehow get it to work, lighting his cigarette and exhaling the smoke through his nose. His skin feels like it’s on fire, every inch of him bursting with anxiety, and everything in him is screaming for him to run, to find Schmidt and end this.

There’s a presence beside him, and even without turning Erik knows who it is. “Missed me, did you?” he asks, taking another long drag of the cigarette and feeling something within him settle. 

“You ran out,” Charles says, folding his arms as he leans his hip against the railing, looking out over at the river. He’s already dressed in his nightclothes, simple brown drawstring trousers and a billowy shirt that keeps slipping over one shoulder. Erik has the strange urge to give him his jacket, an urge he relentlessly decides to squash instead. “I’m sorry about Raven. She-” he hesitates. “She’s my sister, and I love her, I do, but she’s all in a tizz about this whole, ah, treasure hunt thing.”

_ All in a tizz.  _ Who even said that in polite conversation? “It’s alright,” Erik says gruffly, rolling up his sleeves as he balances the cigarette between his lips, before taking another drag and blowing out smoke into the night air. He can feel Charles’ eyes on him, keen and intense. “This gambling habit of hers- tell her not to make it a habit.”

“I would if she listened to me,” Charles snorts. There’s a pause, and then Charles asks, weighty and careful, “Who’s Sebastian Shaw?”

Erik takes another long drag and says, “None of your business.” 

“You’ve made it my business,” Charles retorts sharply. “Erik, if you- if there’s something that’s going on with you-”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, posh boy,” Erik says, turning to face him as well. “I’ll bring you to your city.”

Charles stares at him for a while, his eyes as piercing as ever, and the moment drags on so long that Erik starts to shift uncomfortably. “Right,” he says after what seems like an eternity. “Because that’s why I asked you if you were okay. Christ, Erik, haven’t you ever had a friend?”

“That’s what you are to me?” Erik asks, amused. “A friend?”

Charles simply scoffs, not answering. His hair whips around in the wind again and Erik, again, has the visceral urge to tuck it behind his ear, placing a kiss on his lobe. 

One kiss had been fine, through the bars of that prison because he thought he’d been at death’s door and had wanted to go out with just a taste of what he was leaving behind. Wanting more than that, though- looking at Charles’ entire countenance, at the way he smiles and pushes out his bottom lip in that entirely irritating way of his- that way lies madness, Erik knows that. And if he knows it, why can’t he bloody well forget how soft Charles’ lips had felt, against his own?

“Tell me about Hamunaptra,” Charles says suddenly. When Erik turns to him he stares back, one eyebrow raised in clear question. “You’ve been there, haven’t you? Tell me what it’s like. Is there really a pit of all of Egypt’s treasures?”

“I wasn’t that far inside of that city,” Erik scoffs. “I found the box lying on its side my first day there, pocketed it mostly because I didn’t know what else to do.” He taps his fingers on the railing, remembering. The memory of being in Hamunaptra seems more like a nightmare now, blood and death and his comrades falling, sand shifting beneath his feet like seawater. “It’s just like what I told you. Death, and more death. That, and the city- it’s alive.”

Charles frowns. “Alive?”

“There’s something that lives inside of that place,” Erik says, remembering the pillar with Anubis’ head. How the wind had whistled in his ears, how the mysterious voice had chanted, nonsensical words creating a haunting scream. Erik isn’t scared of anything, not ever, but that may be the one time he’d ever gotten close. 

“I think every city has their ghosts,” Charles says diplomatically. He scratches his shoulder, picking his sleeve back up. “You know what I’m interested in? The Book of the Living. It’s said to contain incantations the ancient pharaohs of Egypt used, and-”

“It’s made of gold,” Erik adds, blinking. “I thought your sister was the money hungry one.”

“You know your history,” Charles says, looking impressed. “And no, I just think- it’s amazing, isn’t it? I don’t believe in magic, but I believe in the people who do. I’d like to see what their faith lies in.”

It’s a roundabout logic, but Erik admits to himself that it’s absolutely something he can see coming from Charles. “Everyone believes the city is evil, you know. The doorway to hell, the natives had called it.”

“Another thing I don’t believe in,” Charles says, grinning widely. His cheeks are flushed, sapphire-like eyes glittered wildly in the dark of the room. “I don’t think evil exists, not really. I think we all have some bad and some good in us- it’s what we choose to act upon, that matters.”

What an awfully naive way to think. And yet, his conviction is a thing of beauty, Erik thinks, his heart warming up despite himself. “What about me?” he asks. 

“There’s so much good in you, Erik,” Charles says, soft. He reaches up, brushes a lock of Erik’s hair behind his left ear before laughing lightly to himself, as if embarrassed. “I’ve felt it.” 

Erik stares back, slightly stunned by the emotion of the response, before he withdraws his head slightly and lets Charles’ hand fall from his face. He turns to face the river again, the rolling waves and the river breeze that’s picked up slightly, before taking another drag from the cigarette that’s little more than a stub now. 

“Back there in the prison,” Charles says suddenly. His eyes have sharpened in their intensity, his lips pursed like the most insidious of temptations. “Why did you kiss me?”

That way lies madness, Erik tells himself.

“One last hoorah before I got hanged,” Erik says, and then despite himself, delights in the way Charles bristles in anger, almost vibrating as he sits up straighter, no longer lounging against the railing in flirtatious temptation. 

“I see,” Charles says, voice stiff and irate. “Well, I hope you got what you needed,  _ Lehnsherr.”  _ He doesn’t quite storm off but it’s a close thing, that errant sleeve slipping down again as he moves back into the corridor leading back into their rooms. The line of his shoulders are broad, an attractive silhouette in the dark.

Erik exhales, flicking his cigarette over the railing as the door closes behind Charles. It is on this distraction that he’ll blame it later on- he’d been distracted, by Charles and his countenance, Charles and his excitement, Charles and the sheer aura he gave out that made everyone come a little closer, just to taste a little bit of that glory. 

“He’s rather brilliant, Erik.”

Erik’s turning in an instant, gun in his hand and pressed to Shaw’s temple, his elbow pressing Shaw’s neck to the pillar. “I should kill you where you stand,” Erik snarls, pushing in his elbow and watching with sick glee as Shaw chokes. “No one would be any the wiser. I should-”

“I have no designs on your young man, Erik,” Shaw rasps, rolling his eyes. “My interests lie elsewhere. As you well know.”

Yes, Erik knows very well. Erik had known it very well when Shaw had collected his mother from their shared apartment, stating he had need of her expertise. Erik had known it very well when Shaw had come to collect  _ him  _ later, stating that his mother had met a very unfortunate end in the cold caves of Malaysia. Erik had known it very well when Shaw had then tugged him all across the world, training him up to be the perfect, brutal yes-man, always obeying, always listening. Erik had known it very well when he’d snooped in on one of Shaw’s conversations when he was eighteen, and found out the truth- how his mother had failed to translate one of the ancient runes scribed onto the walls of a cave housing a treasure chest, how Shaw had lost his temper and fired seven rounds into her chest. 

Erik knows the bloodless sociopathic monster that is Klaus Schmidt now Sebastian Shaw very well indeed.

Erik levitates the coin out of his pocket, floating it in front of Shaw’s forehead.

“Interesting, Erik,” Shaw says, his eyes glittering. He has him by the neck, and he isn’t even afraid. Erik is filled with loathing so vast he knows it will eat him up from the inside out. “Very interesting. So you plan to kill me- what next? Hiding my body in the river? Fibbing to your American friends on the ship that you don’t know a single thing? I came with them, you know. Stryker- his father is  _ quite  _ the businessman, back in America. And Kelly- you must have seen his father somewhere, perhaps in the telly during election season?”

Erik digs in his elbow even further. “You think I’ve cared about as much as that? I’ll kill you right here, right now,” he snarls. “Leave your body for everyone to see, everyone to know that I killed you.” That had been his sole purpose, his mission in life- find Shaw, and end him. It’s fascinating, that Shaw seems to think he’d had aims in life beyond that.

Shaw smiles again, but for the first time, Erik sees a sliver of fear enter his eyes. “You’ve created a monster, Sebastian,” Erik hisses. “You’ve-”

A bullet flies into the space beside Shaw’s ear, and both of them stare at it for a split second, nonplussed. 

“Duck!” Erik screams, and both of them drop to the floor as a sword comes flying right at them. Erik turns on his heel, staring as several men in robes appear all of a sudden, slinging themselves over the railings, armed with swords that look like they can take off Erik’s entire head. Cursing, he raises his hand and clenched it into a fist, hurling the closest piece of metal- storage boxes- at them. Even as they’re downed yet more appear from behind them, as if it’s a whole army of them that’s arrived. 

Erik forgoes using his ability, getting into close quarters and fighting with his fists, delivering a swift uppercut with his fist to one of the men and kicking out at another, hearing a satisfying crunch. Shaw’s already escaped with his tail between his legs, the bastard. It’s only when the men around him are all in a heap on the ground, barely moving, that he remembers.

“Charles,” Erik breathes, and hurls open the door to the corridor, running as fast as his legs can take him on the carpeted floor. He bursts into the room, kicking it open and then stops. 

Right there in the middle of the room is Charles, his sleep shirt once again askew, blinking bemusedly at the three downed men around him. The box is clutched tightly in his hand, the entire room clearly in disarray behind him with the candles overturned and the sheets ripped out. There’s a cut on his head that’s bleeding sluggishly, the blood dripping past his cheek and onto his bare shoulder.

Charles picks the sleeve back up, flushing. “They ruined the map,” he says, clearly aggrieved. “They knocked it out of my hands and it flew into the fire, I couldn’t-”

“That’s fine, I remember the way there,” Erik says distractedly, staring at the men on the floor. They’re out cold, not a single scratch on them. “How-”

Charles, flushing a dull red again, wipes at the blood on his cheek. “Put them to sleep using my telepathy,” he says, wiggling his fingers next to his temple. “They’re not- I haven’t  _ hurt  _ them, they’re just taking a nap right here because I couldn’t figure out anything else. Erik, say  _ something _ instead of just staring at me.”

“We have to leave,” Erik says finally, tearing his eyes away from the men. He doesn’t even know who they are, still, and what their robes signify. More than that, though, he feels a dull sort of impressed awe, and yet fear, at what Charles can possibly do. He’s just taken the telepathy at face value- he’d never stopped to ask about the extent of it. Could Charles change the mechanics of how a mind worked completely, if he asked? Did Charles even have a moral code he operated to?

And then Erik feels abruptly ridiculous for even thinking it. This is the same man who’d tried to teach him swear words in hieroglyphics for three days in a row. He doesn’t pose a danger to anyone, not any more so than Erik himself. If Erik was going to judge him just based on his ability, he’d be no better than the humans who so often hold them at their mercy on no basis other than their powers being apparently dangerous.

Charles stares at him for a second, and then his face crumples as if in hurt before he looks away, visibly fighting to regain control. “Right,” he says. “Let’s go, then.” 

He bends down to pick up the overnight bag and the bag of books. “What are you doing?” Erik demands, grabbing at his wrist. “You can’t just bring that off this ship, are you out of your goddamn mind? Just leave that here!”

Charles gapes at him, one hand on the box and another on the bag. His head wound continues to bleed, making Erik nervous. It has to be stitched up, at the very least. “Are you serious?” he shrieks, far too shrilly. “Some of these are  _ first edition,  _ I can’t just-”

“It’s just a fucking book, Charles!” Erik yells. For a second, he wonders if its acceptable to wring the neck of your own companions. “We have to leave,  _ now!” _

“No,” Charles says firmly, clutching the bag to his chest. Scratch the wondering- Erik is definitely going to kill him. “I’m very sorry my friend, but I cannot in good conscience leave everything behind, not unless-”

There’s an almighty crash from outside the room, before screams start echoing, rocking the entire boat. Erik very abruptly reaches the end of his rope and grabs Charles’ wrist, snapping,  _ “Move!”  _ He doesn’t pause to see if Charles has dropped the bookbag although there’s a loud thunk of something heavy hitting the floor behind him, tugging Charles behind him as he runs out of the room and down the corridor. 

It’s insanity outside. The men in those curious robes are fighting all the passengers of the ship it seems, swords flashing through the air and the heavy fabric of their cloaks whipping about. A few of them come at Erik but he’s able to handle them instantly, ripping metal bolts from the walls and embedding them in the intruders instantly. 

From beside him, Charles stiffens, giving off waves of disapproval. “Do you really have to kill those men?”

Oh, for- Erik rolls his eyes. “Relax, they just have metal in them, they aren’t dying,” he snaps, and tugs a protesting Charles along. “I’ll invite them for a tea party later, that sound good to you?”

“I wasn’t- look, you can just, you know, not potentially fatally injure them. Like this-” they burst out into the balcony, upon which three of the men instantly rush at them before suddenly dropping to the floor like dead weights. Erik turns to the side, in shock, to find Charles lowering his fingers from his temple with a satisfied look on his face. “See, they’re just sleeping,” he adds, rather unnecessarily. “I could find out where they’re from, and-”

“No time,” Erik gasps, as there’s another explosion and the entire boat shudders again. Fat lot of good sending those men to sleep would do, when they were bound to die with the boat anyway. “Where’s Raven?”

“I don’t know,” Charles says, frowning. “She went back down, she said she wanted to clean the Americans out some more. Is she okay? Is she hurt?” He looks away, back towards the corridor, face twisting in anxiety. “Erik, we need to find her-”

“I’ll do it,” Erik snaps, raising his hand and sending another metal bolt through someone who’d been sneaking up on Charles. “Listen, can you swim?”

Charles blinks at him, bemused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

_ “Answer  _ the question, Charles,” Erik says, taking out his gun and sending a bullet spinning through another man who’d been running at them, swords drawn. In the distance he can see Shaw and the other three men fighting back to back with the intruders, bullets arcing through the air. If he timed this right, if he found Raven soon enough- maybe he could finish off Shaw, too. His life’s work, all done on this boat. 

“I mean, yes, when the situation calls for it, I certainly can, but I still don’t see how-”

“Good enough,” Erik says, and then bending down, picks Charles up behind his knees and back and tosses him overboard. 

He doesn’t bother waiting to hear Charles’ shouts- instead, he runs back into the corridor, shooting off bullets and ripping the metal bolts off the walls whenever necessary. He ends up finding Raven in the middle of a circle of five men, in her blue form and fighting so viciously its unimaginable to think she’s really Charles’ sister. As Erik watches, she bashes two of the intruders’ heads together the wall, kicking out at the other two and then using her head to knock out the last one left. 

“Well done,” Erik says, impressed.

“Thanks,” Raven replies easily, not looking like she’d broken a single sweat, blowing the hair off her lips and grinning. If he hadn’t already been taken with her brother, Erik knows he’d be a goner for her as well. “Where’s Charles? I was searching for him, it’s madness in here-”

“He’s safe,” Erik says quickly. “Look, I came to get you off the ship so let’s go, we’ll meet Charles back at the shore.”

“What?” Raven squints up at him and then stands her ground, folding her arms petulantly. “I’m  _ not  _ budging. All my winnings are in there, I can’t just abandon my hard fought-”

For the love of god, Erik thinks. Charles and his books, Raven and her money. They sure made a rather irritating pair. The boat gives another destabilising lurch, and Erik very abruptly snaps. “Listen to me,” he growls, pretty sure his face is doing something menacing when Raven takes a step back. “I’ve had a very, very trying day, and on top of that I do  _ not _ need you risking both of our lives for a few pennies. We are  _ going _ to get off this ship even if I have to drag you there, is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Raven says, and then pats his arm gingerly. “Careful, there- a second longer and your face might be stuck as that.”

“If only I were so lucky,” Erik mutters. 

*

Raven is actually a good help alongside him, fighting off any of the intruders who come close and at one memorable point, ripping a painting off a wall and bashing in one of their heads with it. “Any idea where they came from?” she asks, just as they reach the balcony. 

“No clue,” Erik says, and hesitates. That’s a lie- he’s seen them before, those strange men in their black, heavy cloaks and tattoos inked all over their faces. He’s fought them before, watched them kill his allies one by one as he’d finally fled from them in the searing heat of that blasted city. “I- I’ve met them before.”

Raven’s eyes snap back to him. “You what?”

Before Erik can explain, something behind them explodes- both Erik and Raven are thrown over the railing, hitting the waters with a violent splash. Erik surfaces, gasping for air as Raven does the same a good five metres or so away, and his eyes widen as he takes in Shaw and the Americans attempting to get off the boat, into the waters below.

Shaw raises his eyes, meets his gaze and smiles.

_ No.  _ No, Shaw can’t escape- Shaw won’t be allowed to escape. He treads water frantically, raising his hand with every inch of his depleted energy reserves and attempts to crush the entire boat itself, taking Shaw with it. Try as he might, though, all the boat does is give a frightening lurch before growing still again.

Erik curses, and tries again. And again. And again, and again, and again, until his arms tire, until Shaw looks away, until he’s inhaling water through his nose, until-

_ Erik! Calm your mind. _

Erik thrashes. He might sink. He might drown here, a hollowed out husk of himself, and then he’ll never get to kill Shaw and avenge his mother’s death.  _ No, I need to- _

Those are Charles’ arms around his own torso, Charles’ chest pressed up against him, Charles’ lips puffing warm breaths against his ear.  _ The ship’s not moving and you’re about to drown. Erik, it will be okay, you’ll get other chances, just calm. Your. Mind. _

Erik thrashes again, until Charles lets him go and then he turns around, staring at the other man. Charles’ hair is plastered against his forehead, his sleep shirt stuck to his skin and his lips even redder, wet as they are. “I thought I told you to get to shore,” Erik rasps.

“You didn’t  _ tell  _ me anything,” Charles says irritably. Even so, he looks worried, bottom lip bitten through and his cut a thin slash above his eyebrow. “All you did was ask if I could swim and then throw me into the river.”

Erik’s eyes drift over to the ship. It’s sinking slowly, now, Shaw and the Americans nowhere in sight. His window of opportunity is gone.

“It hasn’t,” Charles says, and shrugs when Erik sends him a look. “Pardon me, my friend. You were thinking very loudly. They’re headed to Hamunaptra, same as us. Anything you want to do- well, we can discuss it on the way there.”

“There is no we,” Erik snarls. He’ll be damned if he lets Shaw, of all people, get close to Charles. Sweet, naive, arrogant, thorn in his side and so, so fucking beautiful Charles, who he’s only known for four days and yet knows he can’t live without. Shaw’s words drift through his head again-  _ he’s rather brilliant, Erik-  _ and something in Erik wants to howl. “This is my mess to handle alone.”

“It isn’t,” Charles says, calm as ever, a slight frown to his face. “You’re not alone, Erik. Not anymore. You have me now, me and Raven.” He smiles, a brittle and small one that nevertheless serves to fill Erik’s shivering, drained body with a strange sort of heat. “I’ll be damned if I let you face him alone. I don’t know what your story is, Erik, but I’ll be by your side, I promise you that.”

What would Charles know of pain, of living your life just to see the end of someone you loathed with your entire being? And yet, Erik feels the strangest sort of relief. He exhales, nodding, and Charles practically beams.

“Right,” he says, once again picking up that errant sleeve of his sleep shirt that had slipped down again, before turning to wade through the waters. “Let’s head back to the shore, Raven must be hopelessly lost without us.”


	2. part ii: the city

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw for canon typical descriptions of violence, mentions of child abuse
> 
> also realised that i should have said this from the start but i deadass have NO idea what colour xmcu erik's eyes are. so for the sake of this story i've affixed them as green. i dont care if theyre not actually green in the movies, boo for you michael fassbender they're green now

The nearest town that they venture to- by foot, their clothes quickly drying under the heat- does not have a single cab driver willing to take them to the piece of land where the Hamunaptra is said to be located. None of them quail, not even under Erik’s ferocious scowl or the flashing of Charles' American Express card. 

“No!” one driver screams, running away immediately and kicking up sand behind him. Charles is left gaping in his wake, everyone else in town averting their eyes. “No, no, no!”

It’s curious, the attitude the locals have towards any mention of the city. “We believe that the city, if it exists, is cursed,” a young girl says in halting English at the shop where Charles is buying spare clothes for the three of them, because Erik hadn’t let him get his clothes either after  _ throwing him overboard.  _ Really, Erik was an absolute fucking rascal- a gorgeous, strong, fierce, absolutely enthralling rascal, but a rascal all the same. Charles would have ripped him a new one over that except that the memory of Raven wading to shore, screaming desperately for Charles to help because Erik was about to drown himself, still stays stark in his mind like a freshly etched wooden carving. He doesn’t know when losing Erik had become unfathomable but now- now, Charles can’t exist without him. “No one comes back. Nothing waits but sand and death.”

That rather seemed to be the repeating mantra. “Interesting,” Charles says. “I’m a man of science, you know. I don’t believe in magic or curses.”

The girl wrinkles her nose at him. “That’s what everyone says,” she says reproachfully. “And then they never return.” She holds up a lilac-coloured tunic against him, nodding with an appreciative look. “This will look good on you,  _ sahib.” _

“What- this?” Charles takes the bundle of similar coloured tunics she shoves into his hands, looking at it with an assessing gaze. It did have a rather good colour. “I’ll take it, then.” He hesitates, staring at the girl as she goes to ring up the purchase. The natives must know something about it, mustn’t they? All of Charles’ research- whatever little progress he’d made on the boat, anyway, before Erik had again forced him to abandon them all- had failed to make any sort of headway on the two names Charles had fished out of Moira’s head; En Sabah Nur, and Selene Gallio. 

“Does the name En Sabah Nur mean anything to you?” he asks, watching closely for the girl’s reaction. 

The girl stiffens, a long line of tension as her fingers still from where she’d been tearing off the price tags. There’s a long moment during which the girl stands, frozen to her spot and staring down at the counter. Charles has just begun to wonder if he should break his own rule and enter her mind anyway when she shakes her head. “It will be good to not ask,” she says, wrapping the clothes up in a bag and passing it to him. There’s an acrid fear pouring off of her, viscous and dark. 

Charles leaves the shop with the lilac tunic replacing his sleep shirt, which had been desecrated beyond repair, strangely discomfited. 

Once he reaches the rendezvous point, he spots Raven and Erik arguing with a camel seller in the distance, Raven angrily handing over a few crumbled notes from her wallet. Erik’s sporting his ferocious scowl again, still clad in the same white shirt and suspenders that are drawing far too much attention to his lithe figure. He cuts a striking distance in the desert, a lonesome wolf. “It’s a robbery in broad daylight,” Raven snaps at the seller who looks unrepentant, counting through the notes. “You should be ashamed of yourself, swindling some poor unsuspecting travellers of their hard earned money.”

“You stole that off someone, Raven, don’t lie,” Charles says dryly as he approaches them. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yes, we-” Erik turns and then just stares, his eyes roving over Charles clad in drawstring trousers and a lilac tunic from head to toe and then stopping somewhere in the region of his pectorals. Charles flushes, not entirely sure why he suddenly feels self conscious. Alright, the colour may be ridiculous but honestly, Erik’s looking at him like he’d just sprouted horns from his head. “What?” he demands, fighting the urge to wrap his hands around himself. 

“Nothing,” Erik says, not letting a single scrap of emotion show as he turns and sets up the camel while Raven continues to yell at the poor camel seller. “Glad to see you’ve gotten rid of that blasted sleep shirt.”

“What was wrong with the sleep shirt?” Charles asks, confused, but Erik doesn’t answer. 

The ride to Hamunaptra is long and gruelling, with the days searingly hot and the nights dropping down to freezing temperatures. Erik, of course, is unfazed, leading the way with a mostly bored look half the time, at one point offering Charles his jacket and scoffing when Charles refuses. He’s tight-lipped, unsurprisingly, refusing to continue any of Charles’ conversations although he does tilt his head and listen when Charles goes off on some of his wild tangents about something or the other. Halfway there, Raven falls asleep slumped over her camel and Charles rides in close to her, leaning over just enough to smooth a black tunic that he’d bought over her unprotected back. 

“You take good care of her,” Erik says as he guides his camel back to Erik’s side again. The emotion in his eyes is inscrutable as he inspects Raven shift on the camel and then let out a deafening snore. “Despite her being a stepsibling.”

“Who said we were stepsiblings?” Charles argues, and then at Erik’s look, deflates. “Yeah- she was all I had for a long time. My mother was not the warmest of mothers, and the less said about my stepfather and stepbrother, the better.” Without Raven to protect and focus on in that drafty old Westchester mansion, he would have gone insane. The move to Cairo had been the best decision he’d ever made, leaving the ghosts of his past and the now empty Xavier mansion behind. Charles feels, sometimes, that he wouldn’t have spent this much time searching for mystery if his childhood hadn’t locked him in with monsters of that calibre. 

Erik looks at him sharply at that. “Did they- were they-”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Charles says easily. He rarely ever brought up his childhood for this reason- everyone reacted as if he needed to be sent to the nearest therapist’s office. Which he doesn’t, because he’s  _ fine. _ “They hit us, yes. I was able to tolerate it, don’t worry. It wasn’t that bad.”

“It wasn’t that bad, he says about adults who are meant to protect you but put you through abuse instead,” Erik says, half laughing, his voice full of wonder. “You’re fucked up, Xavier.” The latter is said with surprise and no small amount of relish, as if the little fact of Charles possibly having childhood trauma is a pleasant revelation to Erik. 

“So are you,” Charles says without thinking and then winces, expecting Erik to flip- throw him off the camel, maybe, or just speed up ahead and refuse to talk to him for the rest of the trip. Instead, Erik looks thoughtful instead, tilting his head up to the sky and exposing the long, graceful arch of his throat. Charles swallows the sudden amount of saliva in his mouth and turns to look at the horizon instead. 

There’s a silence that goes on for so long that Charles thinks the conversation has ended, until Erik suddenly clears his throat. “Shaw and I go… a long way back.”

Charles waits, his fingers itching to wrap themselves around Erik’s own ones. Eventually, Erik sighs and continues, “See, my mother was an academic. Just like you, actually, on everything related to ancient civilizations, the like. She was obsessed with that shit.” He pauses, and then smiles briefly at Charles, saying, “She would have liked you. Probably would have killed me for making her abandon all those books in a sinking ship, too.”

“I would have wanted to meet her,” Charles says softly, heart squeezing in empathy and grief for Erik. 

Erik gazes at him for a moment, expression in his pale green eyes inscrutable as always, before continuing. “He went by Klaus Schmidt at the time. Klaus Schmidt is an archaeologist- a psychopath, spends his life hunting artefacts said to have untold and unforeseen powers. A hidden magical gem, a chest of secrets, and even a book said to be made of gold.” Here he gives Charles an unreadable look, his lips tightening into a thin line, and Charles feels his eyes widen. “So the curses-”

“Shaw is insane, Charles,” Erik says flatly. His grip tightens on the reins of the camel, so tight the knuckles show up in stark relief. “I wouldn’t put much stock into what he does. What’s important is that he came to my mother asking her for help in deciphering the runes inscribed into a cave in Malaysia housing a fountain that was said to imbue you with powers upon drinking from it. She left me with my aunt and followed him down.” He pauses, and then swallows, turning even more starkly pale in the dark of the night.

There isn’t much room for interpretation. Feeling sick, Charles starts to say, “You don’t have to tell me,” only for Erik to shake his head vigorously. He pales even more before stuttering out, “he shot her because she was taking too long to interpret the runes. Can you imagine that?” He gives a laugh, but it’s too wrought with grief to be real. 

“Fuck, Erik,” Charles whispers. All three of the camels have slowed to a stop, as if understanding the gravity of their conversation. “I’m so sorry.” He  _ is,  _ he really is- he suddenly feels for this woman he’s never met, who only wanted to learn more about the hidden past of the world she was living in and paid deeply for it. 

“That’s not all,” Erik says, shaking his head. He sighs out gustily through his mouth, rubs the side of his neck in agitation. “He came down, then. Lied to my face and said that it was an unfortunate accident, she slipped off some cracks and went tumbling down. Can you imagine that? My mother was never clumsy. She was the most cautious person in the world.” His eyes drift, far away to some place where Charles clearly can’t reach him. 

Erik clears his throat, and continues. “I stayed with my aunt, but he asked me to apprentice with him on the weekends. Why would I turn him down? All I knew was that he’d tried to save my mother and failed.”

“My god,” Charles breathes. His eyes drift to Erik’s thigh almost involuntarily, the leather gun holster strapped on alongside a bunch of knives. He’d seen Erik on that ship, manipulating metal and fighting with his knives like his combat abilities were something he’d been born with, as natural to him as the arresting tint of his eyes. “Is the apprenticeship why you are all…” he waves his hand at the holster and realises he looks ridiculous. “Like that,” he finishes lamely. 

Erik snorts out a laugh, urging his camel to start walking again as Charles does the same with his own and Raven’s. “No,” Erik says. “Shaw doesn’t get credit for that. I found out what happened when I was eavesdropping on a conversation between him and the people in his dirty little ring of rogues. Tried to kill him and escaped by the skin of my teeth because he’s a fucking psychotic dick. I got a ticket for a ship, came to America and joined the black ops division in the army interested in dealing with the unknown, the supernatural. Swore to myself I’d find him somehow, some way, and kill him myself. I heard through sources that Schmidt was in Egypt and I jumped on the mission to Hamunaptra.” He drums his fingers on his thigh. “And here we are.”

“Indeed,” Charles says, reeling at the story. His skin crawls, hearing the gory details of what Shaw had done- that wasn’t a human, that was a monster. It explained everything, though- Erik’s reaction to Raven’s entrance, Erik’s refusal to move out of the ocean as he’d attempted to crush that boat into pieces. “Is that why you agreed to the deal?”

“Charles,” Erik says wryly, “I agreed to the deal to live. Shaw had nothing to do with it. It’s just pure coincidence that I met him on the boat. It is convenient, however.” He takes a knife out of the holster and levitates it in his hand, spinning it around and around until it’s nothing more than a grey blur. In the dark of the desert at night, it looks almost luminous- like a shiny, weird sort of lantern. “I’ll kill him myself.”

“Honestly, Erik,” Charles says sharply. “The authorities-”

“Didn’t listen,” Erik retorts, shaking his head. His eyes glitter as he glares at Charles, almost daring him to argue even more. “Charles, I had the proof of a single conversation in my head- nothing else. No one listened to me. I have to do it for my mother.”

It’s not as if Charles isn’t fully aware of what revenge is. Revenge, though- and this he has intimate knowledge of- never quite works out the way you want it to. He’d learned that the hard way, the day he had gone after Cain Marko after the boy had hit Raven in the stomach, coming to his senses as he’d stood over Cain's senseless, comatose body and realising what exactly he’d done. “Are you sure you need to?” he asks gently. “Erik, my friend, killing Shaw will not bring you peace.”

“Peace is not an option for me, Charles,” Erik says flatly, turning his head to the front. “Never was.”

And that- that makes Charles’ heart shatter. How hurt must Erik have been, to never even consider that peace exists for him? Not even happiness, but the settling of his mind- the state of life where there’s content with the world. “I don’t think that’s true, Erik,” Charles argues, urging his camel forward until he’s keeping pace with Erik. “I’d like to think you could be content, if you wanted to be. But that freedom in peace- you won’t find it in revenge.”

“Really,” Erik says dryly. “I don’t know, I think I could be rather happy with his head severed from his body.” He glances at Charles, a quick look that’s fraught with so much tension that some of it bleeds through Charles’ shields. He’s composed on the surface, but underneath it’s as if he’s begging Charles to agree with him, or maybe even be indifferent to his situation. 

Erik Lehnsherr is a murderer, and will continue to be a murderer. Charles can’t make excuses for him, just because he thinks the man is gorgeous. And even more than that- Charles doesn’t ever want Erik to feel what he’d felt standing over Cain’s body in the utter silence of the mansion.

“He killed my mother, Charles,” Erik says, a tint of desperation to his voice. “And then he made me believe he wasn’t complicit at all. What would you have me do?”

_ Heal,  _ Charles thinks.  _ Stay with me.  _

“You will never have any idea how deeply sorry I feel for what you went through,” he says softly. He thinks of reaching out with his mind, soothing the fraught edges of Erik’s mind, before thinking the better of it. He still remembers what Erik had momentarily thought in the ship- that’s a hurt that can’t be forgotten easily. “The extent of your pain- no one should suffer like that. But if you want to kill Shaw, you should do so for the right reasons. Not the wrong ones.”

“My mother dying isn’t a right reason?” Erik demands, threadbare and raw. 

“I didn’t say that,” Charles says, shaking his head. “But this thirst for revenge, it will eat you up alive. And my friend, I’m afraid that I’m very much invested in seeing you amongst the living.”

Erik exhales and looks forward, not replying. They ride the rest of the night in silence, Charles’ words hanging in the air between them. 

They end up arriving at the blank patch of sand where Hamunaptra is said to be located a few hours after that. Charles is lightly dozing by then, head lolling on his chest and dreaming of Erik, as he does these days- they’re both in a field, and Erik keeps leaving him. Never let it be said he didn’t have a taste for the gloomy and the gauche.

He wakes up with a jolt when Raven reaches over, shakes him and hisses,  _ “Charles! _ Charles, you idiot, wake up!”

“Fuck, I’m awake, I’m awake,” he groans, wrenching his eyelids open. “Really, Raven, couldn’t you have…” and then his voice trails off. Erik is beside him on his camel, stiff and silent. 

And in front of them, smirking with a hint of crazed danger, is Sebastian Shaw and  _ his _ entourage of American travellers and hapless natives.

  
  


**_Erik_ **

It’s not as if Erik doesn’t know Shaw is a grade A asshole.

Even when he’d been under Shaw’s tutelage, under the fairly mistaken impression that Shaw had tried his best to save his mother and failed, Shaw had been quite clearly a fucking psychopath. Impatient, rude to a fault, scheming and manipulative- he’s not anyone’s idea of a nice time. Erik had spent half his apprenticeship under Shaw praying that something would put Shaw out of commission and himself out of the misery of having to put up with that cantankerous, selfish, borderline psychotic bastard. All that patience had gone out the window the day he’d found out the truth about his mother.

Right now, though, staring across the desert at Shaw’s face as he sits perched on his fucking horse with his smiling American compatriots behind him, Erik is suddenly once again made forcibly aware of how much of a fucking asshole Sebastian Shaw is. “Fancy seeing you here, Lehnsherr!” Shaw calls out, and Erik’s fingers twitch, the metal balls inside the pocket of his jacket vibrating.

_ Don’t do anything,  _ Charles’ voice pipes up in his mind, irritatingly worried. He can feel Charles’ eyes on him, clearly concerned for his state of mind. Charles’ words are still echoing in his head from the day before, a repeating mantra.  _ He’s told the men with him lies about you and about a worrying aggression that caused you to be transferred between hospitals for a while- they’re under the impression you’re about to snap and attack at any minute, they have their guns loaded beneath their jackets. _

Erik gnashes his teeth together and keeps his gaze on Shaw and the other men, determinedly still refusing to look at Charles. “You knew we were coming, Shaw,” he says levelly. He’ll get Shaw in the city, alone and defenseless, and he’s going to impale him on a metal spear and watch him bleed like a stuck pig, no matter what the fuck Charles says about useless notions like peace and freedom. 

“How can you tell whether this is really the city, anyway?” Charles asks loudly, urging his camel forward and placing himself between Shaw and Erik. Erik bites back a curse, nearly wanting to pull Charles back to where he’d been,  _ safely _ behind Erik and away from Shaw’s keen, assessing eyes. Did Charles  _ ever  _ do anything by the book? “I mean, it’s just sand.”

“Such brilliant expeditioners you’ve chosen to accompany, Lehnsherr,” Shaw drawls out, causing Charles to flush. Erik scowls at him, ready to rip into him and tear his head off of his chest if it wasn’t for Charles, his concerned blue eyes holding Erik at bay. 

“He’s right,” one of the Americans calls out from behind Shaw, his face furrowed in skepticism. “Nothing’s here. You sure you led us right, Shaw?”

“It is,” Erik says loudly, before Shaw can intervene. “Wait and see.” 

It’s a sight he’s seen before and doesn’t exactly want to relive again- the sun rising and with it, the city emerging as if from the sea, gleaming crumbling yellow pillars of buildings and obelisks, carved statues that sing to Erik’s senses. Instead, Erik keeps his gaze on Charles’ face and he isn’t disappointed, not in the slightest- Charles’ jaw drops, as his eyes grow wide and stricken with awe. The dull flush of humiliation from before has become replaced by impressed respect, the knowledge that this is a world unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Raven’s gasping softly by his side as well, and the Americans are cursing loudly, but he only has eyes for Charles- Charles’ look of admiration, his wide eyes and his mouth falling ajar as his hands brush the hair out of his eyes to see better. An entire hidden city is emerging right in front of them, but Charles is still the most beautiful thing for miles to see. 

It’s not as if Erik hadn’t known he was falling, anyway. He might as well enjoy the ride down, as it were.

“Oh, my friend,” Charles breathes, submerged in awe. “That’s beautiful.”

“It is,” Erik says, still looking at Charles and ignoring Raven’s rather pointed cough. “It’s something else, isn’t it?” Anything, he thinks, would look like art when viewed from Charles Xavier’s eyes, from his easily impressed, worldly gaze.

Charles looks back at him and beams, seeming to gleam so brightly in the scorching heat of the desert that Erik wonders why he doesn’t immediately burst into flames. 

“Well, I haven’t got all day,” Shaw says loudly, pushing past Charles on his horse so abruptly Charles almost falls over. Erik instantly steadies him by controlling the metal on the buckle of his trousers, sending Shaw’s back a fierce glare. The Americans follow Shaw as well, one of them sending Erik a look full of scorn that details exactly what he thinks Erik is made up of. 

“Nasty fellow,” Charles says, as they start riding across the desert plains as well. “The one who glared at you, that’s Stryker- very much daddy’s boy, thinks he can get away with anything because of his parentage.” There’s a scowl on Charles’ face that betrays what exactly he thinks about that- understandable, given his past, but Erik still feels shocked by it. Mild mannered, occasionally exceedingly arrogant scholar and professor Charles Xavier, hiding a dark history of a troubled childhood. There’s something wild that stirs in him still whenever he thinks about Charles talking about his stepfather, that distant look in his eyes. “You’re not going to let them reach the city first, are you?”

“Of course not,” Erik says, and then yanks at his reins to make the camel go faster. The three of them overtake Shaw and his men at the halfway mark, Erik discreetly levitating a satchel of tools from Shaw’s bag into his own as he does so. As he passes Shaw he gives a mocking salute, smirking when Shaw bristles in anger. 

The second they enter the city Erik stiffens in terrified anticipation, wondering if the sand will shift beneath his feet again- but everything is still and quiet, as if he’d imagined that entire day in his own brain. 

Raven whistles through her teeth, dismounting the camel as they head further inside the city- deserted, rather like a ghost town. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “Even when all-” she waves her hand at the ruins, grimacing. 

Erik privately agrees. Before, he’d been too worried about finding Shaw and then about all his fellow officers dying in combat, but there’s a strange, mystical air to the city- the towers and turrets and strange statues stand tall and fearsome, even whilst crumbling at the edges due to time. Against the backdrop of the sun it looks otherworldly, still in inactivity and yet, somehow, alive. A beautiful contradiction, Erik thinks as he tenses even further.

Charles dismounts his camel as well as he walks one circle in awe, heading to a bit of clearing in the middle of the grounds in front of the walkway and tying his camel down. He’s almost unaware of his surroundings, jaw hanging ajar as he reaches out to hover one hand in front of a pillar, eyes roving everywhere as if he’s trying to take in the entire scenery in one go. Erik watches him fondly, still aware of the other group settling in at the far edge of the clearing away from them. “Do you realise how momentous this is?” Charles demands, as he bends over to look closely at the crumbling wall of the pillar. The damnable lilac tunic stretches against his forearms, right and restricting and, damn that seller,  _ very flattering,  _ and Erik has to look away for a second in frustration. “We might be the first people to actually be in this city alive and in one piece for years. And to look at everything the ancient Egyptians themselves built, thousands of years ago!” He straightens up, turning to Erik with an excitable look on his face, rather like a toddler that just got handed an armful of candy. “We’re standing  _ right  _ in the middle of history itself, my friend.”

“We’ve lost him now,” Raven says while laughing, stretching this way and that as she walks a bit ways off, studying a structure inscribed with hieroglyphs that entwine around the surface of it in a dizzying manner. “No getting him back, Lehnsherr. I suspect you’d object to that,” she adds, eyeing him with a sly look.

Erik ignores her, looking over at Charles who’s still hunched over, studying the pillar as if it holds all the secrets of the universe. He picks up Shaw’s satchel that he’d taken, bringing it over to him. “Charles- Charles, hey. Take this.”

“Oh!” Charles gasps, taking the satchel in his hands and blinking up at him with a wide eyed look that makes Erik’s stomach do flips in a not completely unpleasant way, either.  _ Mein gott,  _ he’s going to go out of his mind. No one could survive this madness. “Thank you,” Charles says softly with his uniquely red lips curved up in a smile that seems to light him up from within, and that’s when Erik decides to get the hell out of dodge before he does something completely insane like drag Charles into a kiss that would definitely not be appreciated by him. Not another kiss, anyway- Erik still remembers how the first one had felt, how sweet Charles had tasted as he’d grabbed his chin in his hand. 

Madness, Erik reminds himself, and stomps off, Raven cackling behind him.

*

Charles and Raven are the ones to decide to venture out to talk to the Americans about which part of the ruins they would be digging into, Erik keeping his gaze on them hawk-like as they do so. There’s a simmering rage that boils within his skin, hot and uncomfortable as he looks across the grounds to see Shaw smirk back, his gaze full of challenge and contempt. 

“You can’t do anything to him here,” Charles tells him, low and cautious as they make their way to a tall tower that’s topped off with the head of Anubis just behind the clearing, the first part of the ruins Charles wants to investigate. It’s vaguely familiar to Erik, for reasons he can’t place yet. He keeps Shaw’s satchel clutched close to his chest as he continues, “the Americans are on high alert because of his warnings- a single move against him and you’re going to have the coppers on you and you know how mutants get treated by them.” 

“I’ll corner him when he’s alone, then,” Erik says flatly, as they enter the tower just to have cobwebs smack them in the face, Raven cursing as she walks ahead of them with her torchlight turned on. The inside of the structure is filthy, unkempt and dark, a stench hanging in the air. They really are the first ones here in centuries. That thought does not fill Erik with as much joy as it probably does Charles.

“And then how will you explain his disappearance to the rest when they notice it?” Charles hisses. In the dark he’s barely visible, only his eyes shining luminous like a cat’s. He’d fit in well with this city guarded by Anubis. “It’s better to wait-”

“You know what he did,” Erik snaps. He can still remember Shaw bragging about shooting his mother, words falling off his smarmy mouth like toxin. “It’s taking every single ounce of my control not to pounce on him here, Charles. I’m doing everything in my power to hold myself  _ back.” _

“Be that as it may,” Charles whispers back. “You have to be smart about this because I don’t want to see you tossed back on death row at a dirty Cairo prison just when I got you out. I’ve become rather fond of you, Lehnsherr, god knows why, so I’d like to see you alive and not hanging on a noose that you could have avoided if you’d just used what’s up  _ here,” _ he reaches up a finger to tap at Erik’s temple, eyes fierce, “a little.”

Erik captures his finger with his hand, eyes slightly stinging from what he tells himself is just the filth of the ruins. It’s just that up until now, he’s never let himself become this close to anyone before, never let himself bask in the feeling of someone actually wanting to keep him around. This  _ thing  _ between him and Charles- this fragile, curious thing that makes his gaze halt whenever it falls on Charles, makes his chest swell with warmth as he hangs onto Charles’ every word- it makes him feel terror like he’s never felt before but strangely, enjoy it as well. “And you’ll have me compromise on my morals, Charles?” he asks hoarsely. “Just for you to keep me around?”

“Yes,” Charles says, even more fiercely. His blue eyes shine in the dark of the hallway inside of the tower, luminous. “I’m a rather selfish man, as you will undoubtedly find out.” His eyes skitter away to the floor, as if suddenly embarrassed by his confession, and then they widen. “Hold on, there’s something here- Raven! Raven, come back, I’ve found something!” 

Raven comes running back, her torch held aloft. “There’s a very curious wall up ahead,” she tells them, clearly irritable. “It was full of these beetle shaped gems, Charles, I was just about to get them before you called me back.” 

“Never mind that,” Charles says, handing his satchel distractedly to Erik. “There’s a crevisse here, I think if we go down this route we’ll be able to find some-”

“Treasures?” Raven asks, perking up. 

“Ancient weapons?” Erik suggests.

“Hidden rooms,” Charles says, rolling his eyes. “Is there nothing else you two think about, respectively?”

They rappel down the crevisse on the rope, Charles sliding down sharply as Erik reaches out a hand to steady him. They’ve clearly entered a room, although it’s dim and dark, clearly dusty and unused for possibly centuries. Not that that stops Charles- he whoops, for some goddamn reason, and rushes forward to fiddle with what Erik realised is something that resembles a huge mirror. 

“Help me arrange the others,” Charles says distractedly. He’s so excitable, like a squirrel that’s found heaven in a pack of- other squirrels or something. Erik wants to smile, watching him rush around like he’s found his Nirvana.“If my guess is right-” he runs to the first mirror, nearly tripping over a crack on the floor, and aims it at a stray ray of light that had been seeping into the room through the crevisse they’d rappelled in from. Almost instantly the ray of light bounces off the mirror and hits the other mirrors as well, showering the whole room in light.

In the sudden brightness, Erik blinks in astonishment as Raven cheers loudly.

“Old Ancient Egyptian trick,” Charles explains, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Neat, isn’t it?”

The room, now that it’s filled with light, is clearly sparse save for weird little rows of tables and coffins, the coffins propped up and closed. “Preparation room,” Charles supplies, probably noticing his look of confusion. “Where they made the mummies, basically.”

“That’s disgusting,” Erik announces, as they move past the tables and caskets, heading down a passageway that Charles leads the way to. 

“It’s an interesting process,” Charles argues. “You know, it lasted for months- first they would yank the offender’s brain out through the nose of the corpse, and then prepare the corpse with a salt-like mixture to dry it completely,  _ then _ stuff the sunken parts like a turkey during Thanksgiving, before wrapping the bloke up in bandages, and stuffing them in the casket. Really very interesting, if you think about it.” 

“Right,” Erik mutters, as Raven rolls her eyes behind Charles. The things that got Charles going made Erik worry for him, sometimes. “Interesting.”

It’s not as if Erik  _ hates  _ history, or culture in particular. He doesn’t care for it at all, not in the way Charles does, in the way Charles lights up whenever they chance upon yet another room where people were burned alive or whatever. It’s just that this city-  _ this  _ city specifically- is strange in the way that it’s dead with something stirring in the air.  _ Undead,  _ Erik’s mind supplies him with.

Which is ridiculous. There’s no one that’s been in this city for centuries. So why does it feel like Erik’s got eyes watching his every move, even as they make their way down the inside of this structure that’s been deserted in what seems like forever?

Charles stiffens suddenly, turning to look at him as if he’s catched the cadence of his thoughts. Strangely, that doesn’t upset Erik as much as it used to. He’s revealed the worst part of himself to Charles, after all. What else is there to hide? “That doesn’t make sense,” Charles informs him as they continue practically crawling through the passageway, the filth turning his lilac tunic a darker colour. “This city’s been abandoned for centuries. We were the first people in that mummification room for- oh, over ten centuries, I’d bet.”

There’s a strange skittering sound in the wall beside them and Charles immediately jumps, Raven shrieking and clutching his arm while Erik instantly cocks his gun. 

“Famous last words,” Erik tells Charles, just to see him scowl and turn back around with a huff.

  
  


**_Charles_ **

“We’re under Anubis,” Erik says suddenly, as they emerge into a narrow space. At Charles’ questioning glance, he shrugs. “I can- sense him.” There’s an uncomfortable look in his eyes, as if there’s a story behind it. 

“Is that so?” Charles asks interestedly. “Can you sense the whole outline of it? Or just whatever magnetic particles are embedded in the statue? Do you think you can-”

“Slow down, posh boy,” Erik says, grinning lightly, and oh how Charles has  _ not _ missed that nickname at all. “I can sense something. The statue of Anubis, it feels weird. Dark, or something. Not exactly metal.”

“Not exactly metal?” Raven asks, frowning. She sets her bag down, digging out a hammer. “Can you sense metal or not?”

“I can,” Erik snaps, glaring at her. “But this is- I don’t know, this is different. It’s like there’s something  _ with  _ that metal, it’s cloaking it from my focus.” He blinks and then closes his eyes, turning up his face to the ceiling. Charles pretends he’s not shamelessly drinking in the outline of Erik’s jaw, sturdy and sharp, contrasted against the long grace of his throat, and then gives up. “There’s something there.”

“Let’s start digging, then,” Charles says, taking a chisel and a hammer. Erik doesn’t respond, his face still turned to the ceiling. “Erik?”

“Shaw and his men are above that. They’re moving around a lot.” Erik looks at him, and wiggles his fingers. “Can you-”

“Of course,” Charles says, nonplussed. He closes his eyes, pressing his fingers to his temples and extends his telepathy before wrenching his eyes open again, stunned at what he’d seen through Shaw’s mind. A huge chest full of jewel encrusted jars, and a warning on it that whoever opened it would be killed, with all the Americans scoffing at the inscription. “They’re at Anubis’ feet. They- they’ve  _ found  _ stuff. A chest, and- and a book.” The book of the dead, to be precise, clutched between Shaw’s greedy little hands.

“And we’ve found nothing,” Raven sighs, blowing her hair out of her forehead frustratedly. “Is stealing still out of the question?”

_ “Yes,  _ Raven.” Charles keeps his gaze on Erik who’s staring back, his eyes full of desperation and hunger. He had the most beautiful mind Charles had ever come across, but one of the most war torn as well- so much rage, layers and layers of it stemming from one source in particular. 

“I could,” Erik says hoarsely. There’s a muscle twitching in his jaw, a panicky little thing. “I can sense the chest. I could just- just-” his fingers twitch, and unthinkingly, Charles lungs forward and grabs hold of them.

“The time will come,” Charles pleads. He won’t lose Erik, he  _ won’t.  _ “Do you trust me?”

Erik stares at him for a long moment, during which Charles does not dare to breathe. There’s so many thoughts whirring in that head of his that Charles does not dare to enter, not when he remembers how Erik had looked at him back in the boat- slight awe and terror, loudly wondering if Charles even had a moral code. It’s unfair, that psionics are always the only ones subject to scrutiny- a shapeshifter or kinetic gets looked at with awe, an empath or telepath gets looked at with distrust. But this has been how life has been like for Charles ever since he was a kid, and it would be beneath him to get furious about it now. With Erik, though, sometimes he’d wish Erik would look at his telepathy and feel- something other than the knee-jerk fear.

“Yes,” Erik finally says. “With my life.” He sighs, and looks back up again. “Let’s get digging, then.”

“What-” Raven starts to say, looking between the both of them with a bemused look, and then stops when Charles shakes his head. Erik’s story is not his to tell, no matter how close he is to Raven.

They work in silence for a while, chipping away at the ceiling until there’s an almighty creak. Charles only has the time to see the ceiling abruptly break in two before there’s an immense pull on his belt buckle and he’s yanked straight into Erik’s arms, away from where he’d been right beneath whatever had been on top of the ceiling. He coughs as the dust clears enough for them to realise there’s a huge sarcophagus that’s fallen through the ceiling, right where Charles had been standing a second before. 

Erik still has his arms around Charles- in a very,  _ very _ sturdy grip, the touch-starved part of his brain helpfully informs him. “Thank you, my friend,” Charles says in surprise, looking up at him, just to see Erik flush and immediately pull away, his arms regrettably letting go of Charles. “No problem,” he says, gruff.

“Well,  _ I’m  _ fine, if anyone wanted to know,” Raven says loudly, standing up from where she lies sprawled at the other end of the room. “What’s this?”

“A sarcophagus,” Charles breathes, staring at the massive stone casement with something that looked like metal carvings, etched in the shape of hieroglyphs, at the side of it. He brushes his fingers over the surface of it, aware of how Erik’s gone completely still at his side. “Oh my- buried at the foot of Anubis, too.”

“What does that mean?” Raven asks, knocking at the sarcophagus with her fist and grinning when Charles sends her a look. 

“Means he accomplished great things for the Pharaohs of Egypt.” Charles pauses, taking in the hieroglyphs. He brushes his fingers over the metal, brushing away the dirt so that he can read them more closely.  _ He who shall not be named,  _ the hieroglyphs say. They wouldn’t call someone that who’d led Egypt to greater heights.

“Or he did something very, very bad indeed,” Charles adds. 

Erik steps forward, reaching a hand out to clear the dust off what appears to be a massive lock. “This is made of metal and stone,” he says. “Cobalt and granite, if you want to get into specifics. I can’t manipulate it.”

Charles frowns. “Not even to break it through?”

“I don’t know if I’d want to,” Erik says, pointing to the hieroglyph with that same look of apprehension he’s been sporting ever since they entered the building. “Look, I don't know how to read ancient Egyptian, but that does not look good to me. Anyone who has to be shoved in there with a massive lock made of not only metal but also stone- seems to me like they don’t want him getting out.” The lock is made of an eight-pointed star- a star Charles has seen before, when he’d unlocked that box to get the map.

“He’s dead, though,” Raven points out, as Charles starts digging in his pocket for the box. “What if there’s gold buried in there with him?” She folds her arms, staring doggedly at Erik.

“So when you see warnings like stay out, you regularly start breaking into it instead?” Erik demands, a fearsome scowl on his face. Charles manages to finally find the box, opening it with a silent whoop. The eight pointed star that sits inside it fits into the lock perfectly. “Good to know that you have a death wish, Miss-  _ what are you doing?” _

“Those men who came to kill us on the boat asked for a key,” Charles says distractedly, as he gets pulled back roughly, Erik’s hand in a rather bruising grip around his forearm. The box sits there, innocent and quiet. He tries to reach for it but Erik grabs his wrist, once again pulling him back. “And then they tried to grab the box Raven stole off you before I knocked them all out into a nap. Do you think this is what they were talking about?”

“I don’t care,” Erik says roughly. “Why on earth would you fit what you think is a key onto something like-” A scream cuts him off, and he straightens up in alarm, staring out the passageway. Without another word he’s running out, Charles and Raven on his heels after Charles quickly snatches the box back. 

They break out into the hallway and stare, dumbstruck, when two of the natives from Shaw’s entourage run down the hallway, screaming at the top of their lungs, before running full tilt at the wall and crashing into it, falling down with their necks obviously broken.

“This city is fucking cursed,” Erik says roughly, staring down at their bodies. Raven gags before clapping a hand to her mouth, shifting through her forms before finally settling back to her original one. 

*

“We found a chest, made them break it out because Shaw said there could be curses,” the man Charles had gleaned from his mind earlier to be called Stryker says much later, shrugging. Surprisingly enough Stryker has warmed up to him, inviting him over when Charles had approached with an apprehensive look. “There was this bubble of something that came out, made them run out screaming.”

“Why didn’t you get the chest yourself?” Charles asks blankly.

Stryker gives him a look full of incredulity. “Are you kidding? Shaw said there could be curses which could  _ kill  _ us. Ain’t no way was I riskin’ that. We opened the chest, though.”

“Right,” Charles says, slightly disgusted. Of course it would figure that Stryker was exactly the kind of lowlife Charles had expected him to be. He twists his head behind to look over at the campsite he’d set up with Raven, her head bent together with Erik’s. At his glance Erik looks over, his eyes searching for a while before settling on him and brightening up instantly. 

Charles doesn’t know what’s been going on between them, lately. There had been those moments in the desert, and then in the ruins below Anubis- the steady hold Erik had had around him, the way Erik keeps looking at him like he wants to do nothing more than break him open for all and sundry to see. Charles knows he’s in unfound territory, much more than he’d anticipated when he’d first started setting out for Hamunaptra.

“You’re smart,” Stryker says suddenly, and Charles turns back to him, startled, to find Stryker a lot closer to him than he’d initially been. This close, Stryker looks even more abhorrent than normal, sweat on his upper lip and a sneer on his face. “You shouldn’t be with someone like Lehnsherr. He’s violent, you know. A  _ mutant.” _

“Right,” Charles says. It seemed as though Shaw had neglected to acknowledge the fact that Charles himself was a mutant. “Any other advice?”

Stryker grins. “You can stay with us- smart guy like you, we can use more of them.” He winks, as if to sweeten the deal.

“Right,” Charles says again, rolling his eyes. “What-” he stops when he suddenly hears gunfire. Startling in his seat he turns around, only to find both Erik and Raven on their feet, fighting off those men in robes yet again. Erik’s manipulating his metal, easily decapitating two of the men before fighting with yet another one, limbs cutting a fluid arc of action through the air. He jumps up, alarm coursing through his body. Had they come for the box? 

“Stay behind me, sweet cheeks,” Stryker announces, audibly cocking his rifle from behind Charles. “I’ll handle them, don’t you worry.”

Charles rolls his eyes, before pressing his fingers to his temples and waiting for Stryker to fall, thumping heavily into a heap on the floor deep in telepathically induced REM sleep. “Sweet cheeks,” Charles says, scoffing at his prone body. “Get better fucking material,  _ sweet cheeks.”  _ He leaves the body alone before dashing across the campsite, where the commotion has apparently come to a halt. Erik has already stopped fighting the others, staying on his feet and panting with a slash across his cheek that is steadily leaking blood. One of the people in robes is across from him, standing tall and straight. As Charles approaches, gravitating to Erik as has become natural for him, the person lowers the hood to reveal themselves to be-

A blind woman. A blind, beautiful woman, with a fierce scowl twisted in her features, brown skin designed with tattoos and black hair twisted into a knot at the top of her head. As Charles watches, open-mouthed, she raises her scimitar to point it directly at Erik.

“I know you and your friends will not leave,” she utters in a strong voice, vowels carrying across the whole city. Everyone is rooted to the spot, staring at her. “But I implore you to do so anyway. If you stay, there will be nothing but death.” Her eyes flick to the area above Charles for a second, and then back to the left of Erik. “Leave this place, I ask from one Gifted to another.”

Charles raises his fingers to his temple, but before he can do so the woman laughs slightly. “I will ask you not to do so, mind-reader,” she says. “It will not end well, for more your sake than mine.”

She turns, as if to sit astride her horse again. Charles doesn’t even realise Raven’s stepping forward until he suddenly sees her five steps ahead of him, calling out, “What’s your name?” 

The woman turns to the side, a hint of a smile on her profile. “You’ll find out soon enough, shapeshifter. We will fall in love, and have many beautiful children together,” she says, and then rides off on her horse, hooves clip-clopping against the sand. Raven stares after her, a whimper escaping her mouth.

There’s a split second of silence, where Charles tries and fails to truly acknowledge what the woman has just said. 

“Are you  _ insane?”  _ Charles hisses, once the woman is out of earshot. Erik’s still staring after her, expression gobsmacked, blood trickling down the cut from his cheek. The fight had lasted possibly seconds, but he still looks like he’s been run over by a tractor. “She just tried to kill us!” Right before telling Raven they will fall in love and start a family, but that point is significantly less important than the killing part. 

“God, right?” Raven says dreamily, gazing after the galloping horse. “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. You heard what she said. I’m going to marry her.”

“From one Gifted to another,” Erik says suddenly, when Charles opens his mouth to yell a little bit more at Raven. He turns to Charles, the gaze in his eyes troubled. “She’s a mutant. What do you think her ability was?”

“Does it matter?” Shaw asks loudly, and all eyes in the campsite- now ravaged from the battle- turn to him. “Unless you’re scared, Lehnsherr. Easy pickings for the rest of us, anyway.” He winks at Raven, who flips him off rather rudely. 

“Pardon me,” Erik says, pulling Charles close to him. Charles lets him, still feeling unseated and discomfited by the woman’s warning. “You were never one for caution, were you? Always prone to- accidents.” He smiles a wide, shark-like smile, and Shaw takes a step forward, a scowl settling over his face. 

“We’ll just be more careful,” Charles supplies, before the situation can escalate any further. “Can’t hurt, can it?”

Erik nods, but there’s a worry in his eyes, a worry that stays when all of them lie down for the night.

  
  


**_Erik_ **

They don’t make much headway the day after, the next few rooms proving to be duds with empty caskets and plain, empty floors. Truth be told, Erik isn’t trying that hard at all- he’s reeled his senses in, slightly uneasy by that woman’s warning from the night before. There had been a strange wisdom to her, and if Erik’s learned one thing from being Shaw’s apprentice and then being in the army, it’s that a strange woman belonging to a desert tribe of some sort nearly taking their heads off with expert combat and then warning them off a city called the City of the Dead should be taken seriously, or at least with some degree of severity.

“Maybe its treasure they’re protecting,” Raven suggests that night, tipping her head back as she passes a bottle of liquor around. She’d done nothing but talk about the woman the entire day, eyes alight with a sort of energy that had made Charles visibly displeased. “All of Seti’s gold, all under this sand for us to get at.” She sounds gleeful at the prospect. 

“No,” Charles says, shaking his head. He meets Erik’s eyes as well, his cheeks already flushed with the alcohol and making his eyes glitter all the more in the dark of the desert night. He still has that damnable lilac tunic on- another one, because apparently the salesgirl had seen fit to force at least an unending supply on him. Lately, Erik’s found it harder and harder to keep his hands to himself. “It doesn’t make sense for them to kill just to protect gold- and innocents at that.”

“I don’t know if Shaw is innocent,” Erik snorts. 

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Charles scoffs, shoving at Erik’s thigh with his foot. He reaches for the bottle again, drinking another huge mouthful before wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist. Erik turns forward, cursing the way his heart skips a beat at the sight. “It’s an awful lot of trouble to go to for just some gold.”

“Not some gold, Charles!” Raven insists. She flops on her back, clearly too drunk to attempt some semblance of propriety. “A  _ lot _ of gold- you said so yourself!” She drags the  _ lot  _ out, before giggling to herself.

“It’s a lot of gold,” Charles agrees, brushing back his hair again before leaning his weight next to Erik. Erik tries not to freeze, feeling stiff with tension. Charles is a long line of warmth alongside him, gorgeous and inviting. “All of Seti’s treasures,  _ all _ of them.” He, in turn, drags the all out, spreading his arms as if to symbolise exactly how much Seti’s treasures were, grinning foolishly at nothing. Erik tries not to tell himself that the gesture is adorable as all hell.

“You have a point,” Erik says hastily, trying to reel in the fast derailing conversation. “About the-”

There’s a thump, and both he and Charles turn to see Raven on her side, out cold, the bottle in her slack hand.

“Gimme that,” Charles orders, crawling over on hands and knees and grabbing the bottle before scooting back next to Erik. Erik coughs, crossing his legs and trying very hard not to look like he’s come very close to suddenly popping a boner in the middle of a fucking desert. “I’m not like Raven, Lens- Lesh-  _ Lenner _ ,” he informs Erik imperiously, holding the bottle aloft like it’s a prized mare. His eyes are glittering, the collar of his tunic stained with sweat. “I can hold my liquor. All Xaviers can, it’s in our blood. Alcoholics by blood.” He uncorks the bottle, taking another huge gulp. At this proximity Erik can see every bead of sweat collecting at the base of his neck, his cheeks turning ruddy from the alcohol. It makes Erik want to use the bottle to smash his own head in. 

“I think you’ve had quite enough,” Erik says dryly, snatching the bottle away from Charles and trying in vain to ignore his pout. “You were saying? About the-”

“The woman, right,” Charles blinks rapidly, visibly fighting off the haze of drunkenness. “I think- do you think Raven’s gonna  _ marry _ her?” He looks highly distressed at the thought, mouth turning down in the corners in a sad little frown. “How will they have a wedding in this heat?” 

Erik shouldn’t find it endearing, Charles being an obvious lightweight, but he does. Charles swaying where he sits, eyes going briefly in and out of focus even whilst they remain that luminous, arresting blue- it is the most endearing sight he’s seen in a long time, maybe ever. “You’ve had so much to drink,” Erik grins. “It’s kinda adorable. I don’t think I’m going to get any straight answer out of you tonight.”

“Nothing straight about me, no sir,” Charles chirps, before blowing bubbles with his lips and then giggling again to himself. There’s a strange warmth in Erik’s chest as he considers how easy it would be- to just lay his mouth in the crook of Charles’ neck, breathe in the essence of him, cradle his jaw-

But he won’t. He  _ can’t.  _

“One thing I can’t figure out about you,” Erik tells him, watching as Charles eyes the bottle from a distance, moving forward slightly before Erik pushes him back again. It’s like corralling a slightly insane puppy. “Why here? Why this? Why ancient ruins, of all things?”

Charles looks over at him, and then beams so brightly Erik’s taken aback for a second, struck speechless. “You’re so rigid, Erik,” he admonishes. “All- straight lines, no thinking out of the boxes. Isn’t this all interesting? A whole new world, new territory, new culture, new traditions. So many things we don’t know of, we haven’t yet discovered, my friend, and they all lay before us like a map yet to be plotted. I’ll always be interested in ruins, Erik, just like I’ll always be interested in everything around me, in everything that’s about to happen, in everything that has already happened. I just want to find things out- observe, discover, learn. For what is knowledge for if not to be consumed like a piece of wood at a fire?” 

Erik blinks back, stunned at the barrage of words. Charles seems to take his silence as an affront though, lunging forward and grabbing the bottle in his hand, jumping up and pointing it at Erik. “I’m very,  _ very  _ insulted by your silence,” he announces, matter of fact, his eyes narrowed. “You know, I- I may not be, a treasure hunter, or even a very skilled archa- archo- a very skilled fossil finder, or a sexy gunfighter like you-”

_ Sexy?  _ Erik thinks, amused.

“-but I  _ am  _ proud of what I am!” Charles declares with a flourish, before taking another swig of the bottle. His throat works as he swallows his mouthful and Erik- Erik feels hopelessly lost to him.

“And what is that?” Erik asks, snatching the bottle away and placing it far from them.

Charles seems confused by that. “I…” his voice trails off as he looks into the distance, and then he visibly brightens up. “I… am a  _ teacher _ !”

He plops back down and this time his scent feels overbearing- just a bit of the alcohol despite how much he’d been drinking, lemon and rosewood. Erik feels lightheaded, almost dizzy with how much he  _ wants,  _ all of a sudden. 

Charles moves suddenly in front of him, up on his knees with his breath wafting over Erik's face. This close Erik can count the individual freckles on his nose, the way his eyes shine a clear, consistent sky blue. He’s breathtaking and for a second Erik wonders if that woman last night had killed him after all. Maybe this is the afterlife- maybe in this afterlife, he has Charles Xavier looking at him like this, like he’s starving and Erik’s the only source of sustenance left on the planet. “I’m going to kiss you now, Erik Lehnsherr,” he breathes, and then slumps forward into his arms, out cold just like his sister.

“Can hold your liquor, indeed,” Erik mutters, hilarity bursting through in his veins instead. He presses a kiss over Charles’ forehead, settling him down on his bedroll and brushing the hair from his closed eyelids, before reaching for the bottle and finishing the last of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u liked this!! its a little boring in this one rip the next one is better bc thats when actual crazy mummy stuff takes place. also u will notice the chapter count getting fixed- thats bc i have more than half this story done now so i think i generally have an idea of when its gonna end (but also if it goes up pls dont yell at me i ramble a lot D: )
> 
> please leave a comment + kudos, they'll encourage me to write faster <333


	3. part iii: the mummy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw for canon-typical violence, creepy predatory behaviour a la en sabah nur and charles, descriptions of panic attacks

The next day dawns bright and hot, Raven and Charles both nursing a clearly painful hangover while Erik takes an unholy amount of satisfaction in being cheerful. “I’m so sorry,” Charles tells him apologetically behind sunglasses that he’d immediately dived for when he’d woken up. “If i said anything terrible last night-”

“Not to worry,” Erik says. “All you did was tell me that I’m a sexy gunfighter.”

“Oh my  _ god,”  _ Charles moans, turning beet red instantly and making Erik laugh so hard he feels like his insides might burst.

It isn’t even, Erik thinks, that Charles had wanted to kiss him yesterday- although Erik admits he certainly doesn’t regret that, Charles straddling his stretched out legs and grinning at him with those lips, cheeks flushed and pretty. It’s how beautiful Charles had been, when he’d stood up and justified his love in the ancient ruins of this ghost town, this clearly cursed and dead city. It’s how joyous he’d been as he’d called himself a teacher. It’s how sensuous he’d been as he’d crawled on hands and knees to the bottle, the fluid lines of his body so arresting that Erik had thanked his lucky stars that everyone else in the city had been asleep by then. It’s everything that Charles is, that’s slowly starting to make Erik realise that perhaps- that perhaps he didn’t have to  _ hate  _ being in Hamunaptra. Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, could start being the city of the unknown to him- the yet to be discovered. Charles had taught him that.

As they approach the sarcophagus they’d found two days ago, Erik stands back and decides not to say a thing when Charles takes the box out from his bag, looking strangely apprehensive. Charles approaches the sarcophagus at a glacial pace, clearly expecting to be rebuffed, but Erik crosses his arms and stands his ground. 

“Really?” Charles asks, looking disbelieving. “You’re going to let me open this thing?”

“Something you said last night,” Erik says, shrugging and trying to pretend like his cheeks weren’t on fire. Raven’s looking between them, a suspicious glint in her yellow eyes. “Go on, posh boy. Discover away.”

Charles beams brightly at him and then turns to the sarcophagus, fitting the key in before twisting it. There’s a strange hiss in the air, right before the lid off the sarcophagus falls open. All of them take an automatic step back, Charles wincing and clutching his head as the coffin stands straight up like something out of a horror movie. 

The coffin falls onto the floor beside the sarcophagus and Charles immediately straightens up, beaming. “Fantastic!” he exclaims, rushing over and going on his knees, running his fingers along the lid, hangover completely forgotten. Raven and Erik follow at a more sedate pace, Raven irritably brushing dirt off her shoulders and face. “For all my years, I’d never dreamed that I’d get to do this.”

Erik sends Raven a look, to which she shrugs at as if to say  _ he’s insane, what can you do? _ “Get to lay your hands on a coffin?” he says, incredulous. “Just go to any cemetery.”

“Really, Erik, don’t be crass,” Charles scolds. He reaches with his hand over the top of the lid of the coffin, brushing off the dirt and cobwebs before freezing, abruptly going white. “Oh my- this poor man-”

“What? What is it?” Raven demands, stepping closer. Erik does too and then sees what had made Charles react like that. The top of the lid has scratches over various hieroglyphs, big grisly marks that feel violent, almost merciless. He fits his fingers into the grooves, running them alongside the edges. 

“This man was doomed. See the scratches? They removed the wards and magic that was meant to protect him in the afterlife.” Charles looks unbelievably shaken at that, swallowing roughly.

“Thought you didn’t believe in magic and curses,” Erik says, elbowing him at the side. Something about Charles looking scared makes him feel discomfited- this whole enterprise of allowing him to unlock the coffin was supposed to make him happy, not terrify him. “Come here, Raven- let’s open this.”

Together they force the lid open and then stagger back as a powerful, rotten stench immediately fills the room. “Fuck, that’s gross,” Raven exclaims, holding a hand over her nose to ward off the stench while Charles audibly gags. The dust takes about a second to clear after that, the strength of the stench fading bit by bit. Once it’s been sufficiently cleared, Erik takes another step forward to study what’s inside such a tightly bound cage that had been left to rot under Anubis for centuries.

What is inside it, as Erik finds out, is a mottled, grey corpse, half decimated and decomposed, grotesque mouth still twisted in a scream, muscles and sinews eaten through to the bone. The edges of it are rough and flaking, a macabre and malformed aberration of what once used to probably be a much-feared criminal in Ancient Egypt.

“Well,” Raven says after a while, brushing her hands against each other to get rid of the dust. “That’s one ugly motherfucker.”

“Raven!” Charles yelps. “Respect the dead, will you?” He takes a step closer and goes on the tip of his toes, reaching a curious hand towards the lid before clearly thinking the better of it, withdrawing away. There’s a green tint to his skin as his keen eyes rove over the mummy, studying the scream its mouth is still twisted in, the hollow and dead nature of its eye sockets.

Erik doesn’t blame him. This thing will probably be enough to feed his nightmares for weeks, as if he doesn’t have enough of them already. “Mummies are not supposed to look like this,” he says slowly, turning in a semi circle and observing the corpse. “This is still-”

“Decomposing,” Charles finishes. There’s a thick sense of unease in the air, not entirely Erik’s own- Charles must be projecting. Charles must have been very uneasy to project like that, especially since he’s already a trained adult telepath with well-built shields. “He’s over centuries old, and he’s still decomposing. That isn’t- that doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“Careful there,” Erik laughs, brushing a hand over the small of Charles’ back and feeling Charles lean into his grasp, clearly eager for comfort. “You’re starting to sound like the natives who believe in the curses.” He draws his hand away, barely noticing the sigh that falls from Charles’ lips, and takes a step closer to the lid that’s fallen to the floor, bending down to inspect the inside of it. There’s something darker across the top of it and Erik leans even closer to peer at it more closely. Burn marks, he realises, brushing a hand over the charred edges of it- burn marks, scorches, and dried blood.

Over a thousand centuries and the dried blood had stayed. If Erik had any sense of preservation left, he’d get the hell out of dodge right now. Unfortunately, and god knows why, his sense of preservation had deserted him the second he’d spotted Charles in that prison in Cairo.

“Burn marks,” Charles echoes from behind Erik. “He may have been a mutant.”

“Weird,” Erik comments. He hadn’t ever thought about exactly how mutants had originated in the first place. Mutants, even now, had a shit time anyway- sure, the Mutant Protection Law had been passed, and there were quotas and other useless trivialities like that, but underneath it all the underlying scorn humans seemed predisposed to have towards mutants has always been hard for Erik to ignore. He had needed to be called  _ filthy jewish mutie  _ only so many times in his childhood to be able to cotton on to exactly what humans thought of them all. “This was one of the first ever mutants, then? Explains why they locked him in like that.”

Charles shoots him a quelling look, and then points to a darkened section above the scorch marks. “Here, it’s a message. It was written in blood, actually.” He pauses, looking even more uneasy now as he drops to his knees beside Erik, reaching up to run a hand through his hair and streaking it liberally with filth. “It’s survived all these years, dear god.”

“What does it say?” Raven asks.

Charles brushes the dirt off of the message until the hieratics become clear once again, and then sucks in a short, sharp breath. This time, he projects his fear like a bullet, piercing and violent. Raven coughs, hissing through her teeth while Erik tries his best to keep upright. “What does it say?” he asks more urgently as the fear abruptly disappears, Charles visibly swallowing to keep his composure.

There’s a pause that goes on for so long Erik thinks Charles has simply forgotten that everyone else is waiting for an answer. “Everything you have built will fall,” Charles says eventually, his voice tremulous. He clears his throat, and then continues, “and from the ashes of your world, I will make a better one.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Raven whistles out, so pale that the blue of her skin looks washed out and faded in the dim light of the room. “Who  _ was  _ this guy?” 

Saying that the message alarms him is an understatement. They never should have opened this sarcophagus, Erik realises with dawning horror. He discreetly floats the metal balls out of his pocket, and elongates them into spears, fine-tipped and dangerous. At the sound, Raven looks over and scoffs. “What, you’re gonna stab that corpse to death?”

“If that fucker wakes up, I definitely will stab him back to death,” Erik says grimly, and it’s a hint to how alarmed they have all become when neither Raven or Charles tease him for it. Charles continues to inspect the lid of the coffin, his face waxy and pale. Erik unconsciously reaches his hand out again, covering the small of Charles’ back with it and feels comforted when Charles leans into the hold, something within him strangely settling. 

“Hang on,” Charles suddenly says. “Look at these- dead beetles, or more accurately, scarabs. They’re carnivorous and feast on flesh. Our friend here was eaten alive.” He looks even more disturbed at the thought, if that had been at all possible. 

“That’s disgusting,” Raven says emphatically, reaching a foot out and nudging at the dead insects with it. “What did he even do? Get frisky with someone he shouldn’t have? Treason?”

“Maybe they hated mutants that much,” Erik says, shrugging. He looks at the scorch marks again, deep and seared in. You’d have to be powerful and desperate, to leave a mark like that. And yet, how had this mutant in particular not broken out? Were the curses true after all? Nothing about this made any sort of fucking sense- a mysterious mummy eaten alive, buried under Anubis that could have only been released with the help of a key that they’d all almost been killed for. This, he thinks irritably, is why he should have stuck to hunting down Shaw. Fuck blue eyes and drunken exclamations of ambition.

“No, that doesn’t make sense,” Charles argues. “If so, we would be coming across dozens of coffins like this. No, this is clearly the  _ Hom-Dai,  _ the worst of Egyptian curses.” He sits back on his haunches, dislodging Erik’s touch on his back, wrapping his arms around himself before looking up at Erik. “You know, they say that if a victim of this curse in particular should ever arise, he would bring with himself the ten plagues of Egypt. The frogs, flies, locusts, fire-”

“Alright, we know, we get your point,” Erik says hastily, sharpening his spears even more into a fine-tipped edge, ignoring Raven’s eye-roll. 

If nothing else, he could at least be sure to skewer any awakened dead mutants on his spears. That line of thinking, however, is pretty fucking stupid- even Erik’s well aware of that. Mummies are dead, no matter what a bunch of superstitious natives say about curses. It wouldn’t ever have to come to that. 

*

“They had a  _ much  _ greater haul than us,” Raven snaps, as Erik sits by the now dimmed campfire, lightly drifting on the edge of sleep. She looks annoyed, arms folded across her chest as she rapidly shifts through forms before settling on a blonde haired one. “They did find a chest two days ago, you know.  _ And  _ today they found a few jewel encrusted jars with it! And what did we find? Oh, just some  _ stupid _ mummy eaten alive by  _ stupid _ beetles!”

“Calm down,” Erik says, yawning. Charles had spent the rest of the day yammering on about the mummy- terrifying warnings written in blood or not, he seemed to think they’d come across the find of the century. He had looked adorable, hands waving in the air as he’d talked a mile a minute while skipping backwards on the sand. Erik hadn’t had the heart to tell him that only finding one bony corpse probably wasn’t much for celebration, at least by archaeologist standards. “You can always just steal them later, you excel enormously at that.” He ignores Raven’s glare at him as she huffily lies down on her bed roll, casting his gaze about for Charles, who worryingly enough is nowhere to be found. “Where’s Charles?”

“Off to talk to Stryker, no doubt,” Raven says, her voice still irate. “I think the man has the hots for him, which is disgusting.”

Erik shoots up at that, momentary sleep-addled daze forgotten.  _ “What?!”  _ Charles- sexy, irritating, definitely sexy Charles with that idiot Stryker? Had he read Charles’ intentions wrong? Was Charles intending to kiss him just a manifestation of him being drunk with loose inhibitions? More importantly, where the living hell was Stryker so that Erik could rip him limb by limb like he clearly deserved?

“Relax, Romeo,” Raven snorts, turning over in her bed roll so that her back faces Erik. “Charles still likes you. He just also loves using people to get what he wants. He was very annoyed about Shaw getting at the book of the Dead before us, you know.”

“But-” Erik frowns. He’d been planning to talk to Charles about the aborted kiss today. He’d had a  _ plan-  _ be his normal, dashing, romantic self, causing Charles to of course fall into his arms and then demand for Erik to take him on the sand right then and there. By tomorrow morning they would be disgustingly in love, pissing everyone else off. 

“No more questions,” Raven says loudly. “I came here for  _ treasure,  _ you know. What did I get? Mummies, beetles, and my brother making yet another person act like a complete idiot and not getting the hint.” Erik frowns at her back, but all she does is give a loud, faked snore, flipping Erik off. 

It turns out that Erik shouldn’t have worried anyway- Raven had been right about Charles using Stryker. He comes scurrying out of what must be Stryker’s tent, and as he approaches their campsite Erik observes with increasing alacrity how his lilac tunic lies clearly askew with a an angry, red bruise high on his neck, a grey book held in his hands and a bright smile of triumph lighting his face up.

“Please don’t tell me you seduced Stryker to get at the Book of the Dead,” Erik says weakly, staring as Charles eagerly dashes over, plopping down to sit cross legged on his bed roll with the book held in his hands.

“I seduced Stryker to get at the Book of the Dead,” Charles confirms, an entirely too gleeful grin sitting on his lips. Erik can’t decide if he wants to clobber Charles or kiss him, or kiss him and then clobber Stryker. There’s a definite sense of jealousy sitting high in his chest, making every inch of him turn livid with anger- what did Stryker have that he didn’t? Even if Charles had done it just to get at some stupid book?

What would Erik have to do to get Charles like this, bright and sincere and in his arms? Become stupid like Stryker? Erik can do that. 

“Anyway,” Charles says, as he takes the box out of the satchel, “this book belongs to  _ us _ , because  _ we  _ have the key. Imagine this, Erik! Four thousand centuries, and no one has touched this before- except for us!” He pauses, and adds, slightly disdainful, “well, us and Stryker.”

Erik lies back down, still huffy from the mental image of Stryker making out with Charles in his tent. What had Stryker done? Tongue the dip of Charles’ collarbone like Erik has wanted to so many times? Get his hand under that fucking lilac tunic, take it off his body while Charles had made probably the most delightful noises underneath him? Oh, but Erik’s entire kingdom just for the chance to rip Stryker’s ribcage out of his undeserving, filthy and worthless body. Because Stryker doesn’t deserve all that is Charles, isn’t worth all of him- not like Erik is. 

Charles bites his lip for a second, looking at Erik. “Erik. I passed by Shaw’s tent. Shaw- he-”

“Yes?” Erik frowns, his mind still on Charles and Stryker. He should have kissed Charles again. Anything, to get him away from Stryker. God, had the kiss in the prison and then the almost kiss when he’d been drunk meant nothing to him?  _ My brother making yet another person act like a complete idiot,  _ Raven had said. Was Erik just another one of these idiots to Charles?

Charles hesitates again, and then shakes his head. “Nothing, never mind.” He dips his head back down, fiddling with the lock of the book. Any other time Erik would have still pestered him until he’d break but he’s distracted, still thinking of Charles and Stryker together. Maybe he could castrate Stryker with one of the metal balls in his pocket. 

The lock clicking on the book sounds like a gunshot echoing through the air, and then Charles is gasping softly, the sound reverberating through the quiet night. “Oh, Erik, this looks amazing,” he gushes.

“I’m sure it does,” Erik says grumpily. What did Charles sound like, when Stryker had gotten him under him like that? A moan, maybe. Fucking hell, why couldn’t Erik have gotten the book instead? Then Charles could have seduced  _ him,  _ for a change.

“This is wonderful! Oh, I wonder what this says.” Charles then starts speaking, once again in the language of the Ancient Egyptians he’d spoken near the cave earlier. His accented vocals wash over Erik, the lilting, soft voice almost like a lullaby that pushes Erik more to the vestiges of sleep as he reads out from the Book of the Dead. 

And then Erik’s eyes fly open.  _ Reads out from the Book of the Dead. _

“Charles,” he barks, sitting up straight. Has it gotten windier? There’s a strange whistling in the air, the edges of the bedrolls moving with the gusty winds. That eerie chanting resounds in the air, the one Erik had heard when he’d been in the city for the very first time, cowering near the statue of Anubis. “Charles,  _ stop reading.” _

“...Ahm Khum Dei,” Charles says, and then looks up at him with a frown. “What? I’ve stopped reading!”

The wind elevates into a screech, a cacophony of noise that makes Raven sit up with a curse, asking, “Hey, what the hell’s going on?” Erik jumps up, staring at the distance as a monstrous black shape emerges. It gets closer and closer, until-

“Locusts,” Erik gasps, as the campsite comes alive, as Charles snaps the book close- fat lot of good that would do now- as Raven twists around with a look of bemusement. “Those are locusts.”

The swarm comes closer, and Erik realises it’s not just a few hundred of them- it must be a million fucking locusts, all racing towards the city at the speed of light, like the harbinger of death. For a split second, Erik just stands there and thinks about how he could have possibly missed all of this if he’d just hanged to death in that prison in Cairo. It’s not an entirely unpleasant thought.

And then one of the natives stumbles out of their tent, points at the swarm of locusts and screams.

_ “RUN!”  _ he shouts, yanking both Charles and Raven up, and they run with the buzz of the locusts echoing behind them. 

  
  


**_Charles_ **

“What the fuck is happening?” Raven demands the second they burst back into the base of Anubis’ statue, the locusts slamming into the closed door behind them. There’s chaos outside- screams and gunshots and the occasional cry for help, the sound of feet slamming against the sand and bullets zipping through the air to find no target. Charles hunches over, panting, hands on his knees as Erik slumps against the opposite wall, running a hand over his face.  _ “Well?  _ Is someone going to tell me?”

“Ask your brother,” Erik snaps. He’s clearly furious, red spots high on his cheeks. “You idiot, that’s the first plague- locusts.”

“It happens every year,” Charles snaps, straightening up. He can’t have brought the ten plagues on them by reading that book aloud, that’s something he absolutely refuses to accept. “They change homes, it’s a rare occurrence but it happens-” he takes a step forward and then freezes, his boot hitting something soft. Erik swings his torch downwards, and all three of them gape at the frankly illogical sight that greets them.

The entire hallway is covered in frogs. 

“And what,” Erik says dangerously, a muscle in his jaw twitching, “does your precious, big head tell you about frogs?”

“I’m sure there’s a natural explanation,” Charles says weakly, and Erik quite positively explodes.

“Are you out of your  _ mind?”  _ he roars, spittle flying. That muscle in his jaw jumps as he glowers at Charles, looking as close to homicide as Charles has ever seen him. “Sometimes, god, I’d give anything to wring your fucking neck!”

“Hey!” Charles yells. “Don’t pin this on me, I was just-”

“Just knowledge, isn’t it?” Erik snaps, and Charles freezes yet again, staring at Erik. He knows Erik’s angry but it’s one thing to register that and another to actually look at Erik and watch his eyes fill with a certain kind of fury directed at Charles, cheeks turning ruddy from the rage and hand clenched so tight over the handle of the torch it’s a wonder it doesn’t break. “Just  _ curiosity.  _ Some things, you fucking idiot, should stay undiscovered, ever thought of that?”

“Guys,” Raven says weakly, but she goes ignored.

“That’s unfair,” Charles retorts, trying to ignore the way every single word of Erik’s hits home with an unexpected directness- his stepfather, telling him that one day his love of knowledge would kill him, his mother telling him to keep his mouth shut and his questions to himself. And yet, there’s a sinking feeling in his gut, that what Erik is saying  _ is  _ true- if he hadn’t read that book out loud, if he hadn’t gone to Stryker’s tent because he’d seen him carry that book and he’d been so, so curious, the curiosity eating him up from the inside out, if he’d just stayed on his bed roll instead and not given in to that hunger that Mother had said would always spell his doom in her rare fits of lucidity-

Charles reaches a hand up to rub over the hickey on his neck, and sees Erik’s eyes darken even further again with fury.

“You honestly thought there would be nothing wrong,” Erik growls, “with reading out incantations from a book literally titled  _ Book of the Dead _ .”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Charles says weakly. “Look, you didn’t stop me either!”

“Why, you little sh-”

“Guys,” Raven says again, louder and more desperate, before she gets ignored yet again.

“I’ll  _ fix  _ this, okay?” Charles says desperately, folding his arms and feeling more boxed in and defensive by the second. He doesn’t like Erik being angry at him- he hates it, he wishes Erik would go back to consoling him a bit right now because lord knows he sure wants it even if he doesn’t deserve it. “But throwing accusations at me isn’t gonna help! I’m sorry for- for-”

“For having a university level education and still being stupid enough to use an artefact that’s known to be cursed? For possibly dooming the entire fucking world to an apocalypse?” Erik’s eyes flash and he takes a step forward, jabbing the torch at him menacingly. Every word that spills out of him causes something in Charles to quake and wither. “For never thinking before you act, despite being a hypocrite and always telling me to do otherwise?”

_ “GUYS!”  _ Raven shouts, and this time both of them turn to her. She’s visibly terrified, yellow eyes wide in the dark and skin a sharp white with fear. “I would normally leave you two to have your little lovers’ spat but right now don’t you think we have bigger problems to be dealing with? Like  _ that?”  _ She points to what looks like a hump that seems to be at the other end of the corridor.

No, not a hump, Charles realises with dawning horror. A growing sand dune, that gets larger and larger and larger- until there’s a pop that sounds like an explosion in the silence and thousands of scarab beetles crawl out of it at breakneck speed.

“Go, go,  _ go!” _ Erik shouts at the top of his lungs, and they’re running, Erik levitating his guns at either side of himself and shooting at the beetles. They climb up a staircase and break out onto a walkway, Erik and Raven climbing on top of the pedestal at one end of the walkway while Charles hoists himself up on top of the pedestal opposite to them. He leans against the wall behind him, panting and staring at the scarab beetles that dash across the walkway, pincers clicking with the fierceness of hunger and bloodlust. Let one get too close, he remembers Moira telling him conversationally while they’d be poring over research one day, and they’d eat your flesh alive, sink their pincers in and reduce you to nothing but a malformed, twisted skeleton. 

God. What had he  _ done? _

Deep in his own morbid thoughts about the veritable river of scarab beetles racing below, the thought of the locusts and frogs from before, Charles doesn’t even think about how the wall behind him seems to be suspiciously moving. That is, until it gives way and he’s suddenly falling back, nothing to support him. The last thing he sees before the wall slams shut in front of him is Erik turning, the fury melting into abject terror in his eyes as he screams,  _ “Charles!” _

*

Charles falls painfully on his arse, the wall closing in front of him. “Moving walls,” he mutters as he stands up, wincing when the bruises on his tailbone make themselves known to him. “Of course.” He places a hand on the wall and pushes it, feeling alarm rise within him when it refuses to move again, having seemingly melted back into its original purpose of being an immovable object.

Charles had never believed in curses or magic before this. He’s a man of science, a man of irrefutable fact and evidence. He knows what he ought to believe in, and what should be discarded as clear myth and legend, folk tales told to scare the children around a campfire. There’s very little that’s irrefutable about a wall that acts like a door one instant and like a pillar the next, or swarms of locusts and ancient beetles and frogs appearing like plagues after an incantation from a book is read out loud. 

Charles blows out a breath, turning and walking carefully alongside what looks to be yet another dim and darkened chamber. Was he even in Anubis’ statue anymore? He’d known that when it came to architecture the ancient Egyptians were one of the best at it, but this feels frankly otherworldly. The careful planning, the level of detail, the intricate connections seem almost too surreally capable to be true. 

There’s shuffling footsteps in front of him, the touch of a mind blinking in the distance ahead. Charles stiffens, his fingers going to his temples before his eyes focus themselves and widen. He recognises that mind, considering he’d been touching it to push it to sleep just minutes ago. “Stryker!” he yells out. The man himself is lumbering on alongside the corridor, his gait slow and halting. Charles reaches out a hand once he’s close enough, tapping him on the shoulder. “Stryker, thank god I-”

Stryker turns, and the sight that Charles is met with makes him clap a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from screaming. The fear within him rises to a horrific crescendo, threatening to control his rational sense and rule him completely.

Stryker’s entire face is covered in blood, thick gushes of it that stream from the cuts on his face and stain the entirety of his shirt. He has- he has no  _ eyes,  _ Charles realises in horror, just bloody sockets that continuously bleed in place of them. His mouth’s covered in blood too, bright red that looks black in the dark of the chamber.

Charles doesn’t wait. He pushes into Stryker’s mind with zero finesse, searching until he finds the memory of what had happened to him just an hour ago. Stryker had been escaping the locusts too, until the men had all rushed forward and left him behind, one of the natives knocking into him and causing his glasses to fall from his face. Charles continues to watch the memory, horrified, as Stryker had finally put on his glasses again and only to turn and look at the mottled corpse he’d found in the coffin earlier that day. It takes a hold of Stryker’s shoulders, smiles in a grotesque manner, reaches towards his face and-

Charles yanks himself out of Stryker’s mind, distantly aware of Stryker falling to the ground. He bends down, helping Stryker into a sitting position, attempting to wipe at the blood from his face and sobbing when Stryker chokes, coughing out even more blood and turning whiter from it. Death would be a mercy for him now, with that memory in his head. “No,” he breathes, the fear in him almost choking his vocal chords, twisting them into knots that feel tight and unrelenting. “No, no, no-”

He stands up again, staggers back a few steps and then bumps into something that feels solid and yet brittle. He spins around on his heels and then quite promptly feels his heart claw its way into his throat and lodge itself there. 

It’s that same mottled corpse from the coffin and Stryker’s memories- this time with eyes and a tongue. Charles, his mind empty for what feels like the first time in his life, steps back and then again and again until his back hits a wall, the fear twisting up inside of him like a crashing wave about to consume him whole. The corpse stares at him- not a corpse, Charles thinks distantly. No longer a corpse, because corpses did not breathe and blink and click their tongues, corpses did not gaze with an intelligent look in their eyes, corpses did not stretch a hand out and brush the tips of their fingers across his face, making him press his back even further against the wall. 

He doesn’t even have a gun. That’s Erik, that’s not him, he doesn’t even have a gun, the man in front of him doesn’t have a mind so he can’t defend himself, he’s going to die right here, not even without telling Erik that-

“Selene,” the half formed corpse howls. It’s a hollow, echoing sound, making each hair on the back of Charles’ neck stand up in bone-chilling fear. “Selene.”

Charles has never felt this terrified in his life before, not even when Cain had been laying blows into him so rough and painful it had felt like he was on the edge of death. He’s going to die here. “No,” he whispers. His voice doesn’t seem to work, he can’t even scream in terror. “No, I don’t- I’m not-”

“Selene,” the corpse insists, his eyes watering up. He’s so close now, that his rotten breath is wafting over Charles. Charles feels light headed at the proximity, dizzy with his vision swimming worse than the high seas. His heart is pounding so painfully it feels like it might explode its way out of his chest. Maybe he’ll just black out from the fear, the stark terror coursing through his veins like the most terrible of toxins. Then he won’t have to live through this thing eating him alive.

“Mind reader,” the corpse says in Arabic, “beautiful.” He unhinges his jaw and his mouth- widens, Charles notes with a strange sort of detachment, into a huge, gaping hole that’s pitch black. It seems to transform into something else entirely, with its jaw unhinged and its eyes wild and soulless like the most dangerous of monsters. This is no corpse- this is a demon, a flesh-eating, calculating, horrific nightmare of a demon who’s about to tear into Charles and rip him open. That’s when Charles suddenly finds his voice again, and screams.

  
  


**_Erik_ **

Erik Lehnsherr is not having a very good night. 

It’s not as if he’s always had good, decent nights anyway.  _ This  _ night in particular, however, takes the cake. 

First it had been Charles making out with Stryker- and yes, he thinks, he’s  _ still  _ angry about that. And then it had been Charles- beautiful but stupid, annoying, infuriating, aggravating Charles, reading out from the Book of the Dead and thusly spelling doom for them all. As if that hadn’t been enough, now they have flesh eating beetles chasing after them and, to top it all off, Charles has just disappeared through a wall, his terrified blue eyes the last thing Erik sees before he falls back into pitch black darkness. 

“Charles!” he screams- to no avail, as the wall melts back into its original function again. The beetles are all gone, and he runs across the walkway, banging at the wall with his fists and then kicking at it. It’s a futile effort, as the wall stays just as it had been and doesn’t budge an inch beneath his fists.  _ “Charles!” _

“It must be a trapdoor,” Raven pants, her skin having gone white with fear and terror. She kicks at the door again, kicking and kicking and then howling in rage. “Come on, come on- Charles! Charles, you idiot, answer me!”

“Nothing,” Erik says furiously, kicking at the door himself as he feels his foot start to throb. “How- how-” he can’t even put his query into words. Charles is defenseless, he remembers with a sudden, sharp horror, he doesn’t even have a gun with him because he’s told Erik before that he simply did not believe in the use of such weapons. It’s not like scarab beetles or locusts or even frogs have minds of their own to penetrate and fight with his telepathy, either. Charles is on the other side of this _ verdammt _ door, alone and helpless, and Erik is here uselessly trying to break through solid stone. 

“Maybe if we-” Raven turns to him and then her eyes travel down his body, landing somewhere in the region of his arse.

“Raven,” Erik says blankly. “I’m flattered, really, but I don’t really know if I-”

“Oh my god, you asshole, I’m not checking you out,” she snaps, before gesturing at his pocket. “You have rifles and that metal shit in your pocket, can you use that to break in? This is made of stone.”

“That- that’s not a bad idea,” Erik says, stunned and more than a little ashamed he hadn’t thought of it before. He has those balls in  _ his  _ pocket, after all, he’s the fucking metallokinetic here. He steps back a bit, floating the balls out of his pocket and lengthening them into three separate spears. “Okay, step back, here we go…”

The door doesn’t give on the first try, staying still under the assault of the spears like the most infuriating of barriers. Erik swears again, before combining the spears and reforming it into a hammer that still doesn’t make the door budge. He gnashes his teeth furiously, ignoring Raven worriedly cursing beside him as he racks his brain for ideas. “Here goes nothing,” he murmurs, before discarding his belt buckle- he does have suspenders on, anyway- and melting the metallic parts of it to give the hammer more substance, before bashing it into the door again. This time the door gives way with a resounding crash on the third try, the stone crumbling to the ground, and Erik rushes through just in time to hear what he thinks he can spend a lifetime without hearing ever again- Charles giving an earth shattering, eerie scream. “No,” Raven gasps. “That was-”

Erik runs as fast as his feet can possibly take him, heart pounding as the only mantra in his brain that resounds is one that says  _ get to Charles get to Charles get to Charles.  _ He eventually crashes into a clearing to see Charles leaning against the wall, lilac tunic streaked with gray dirt and definitely torn on one side, his skin white with what is quite clearly fear. His relief very abruptly morphs into anger.

“Charles!” Erik yells, storming forward and grabbing him by the arm, shaking him. Charles just flops back onto the wall, like a useless dead fish “Charles, you asshole, will you  _ stop _ fucking about-”

And then he realises Charles isn’t even staring at him- he’s staring  _ behind  _ Erik, at some spot above his shoulder. His pupils have constricted with fear, the blue of them startling in its intensity and his hands are trembling so much at his side that he genuinely looks like he’s developed arthritis. Erik doesn’t need to be told instructions to put two and two together. With a sinking feeling, he asks wearily, “something’s behind me, isn’t it?”

Charles just bites his lip, still and silent against the wall. And Erik turns, his heart pounding in his throat just in time to see what he thinks has to be the ugliest creature in existence- the mummy from the sarcophagus, Erik realises, and for fuck’s sake he  _ knew  _ they shouldn’t have broken that thing open. Said creature has eyes now, he realises, fucking grey eyes that look dead and soulless and wrong in that mottled skull of his. As both Erik and Charles stare- Charles having scooted over to him and now clinging to his arm with a vice-like, painful grip- the mummy unhinges its jaw in a move that Erik was pretty sure he’s only seen in B grade horror movies before which his mother used to play for him, and shrieks, an unholy, horrifying scream that echoes, that bounces off the walls of the chamber in a feedback loop, as if to remind them they’re both stuck in this chamber with something that looks like an extra from fucking Cemetery Man. 

Erik opens his mouth and shrieks right back. The mummy stumbles back, the shriek cutting off into a confused sort of whimper.  _ Good,  _ Erik thinks viciously and maybe slightly insanely,  _ two can play at this game.  _ He flicks his fingers, unloading a barrage of bullets into the creature’s gut, causing it to howl painfully and collapse to the floor. He grabs Charles’ wrist, then, after casting an eye over him to make sure he isn’t injured. “Go, let’s  _ go!”  _ he roars, tugging him along as they run down the corridor, Raven at their heels.

“Did you just scream at it?” Charles pants. 

“That was so badass,” Raven crows. “If he’s still after us, though, I’m sacrificing you first.”

“Both of you  _ shut up,”  _ Erik begs, and they continue to run down the corridor, past the teeming frogs coating the floor before finally exploding out through a doorway and stumbling into the open sands of Hamunaptra. The American men- sans Stryker and Shaw- are on their knees, hands above their heads, kneeling in front of a row of standing men in robes that look very familiar. At the head of them is the beautiful, blind woman from before, her hood pulled down and her face unreadable and cold.

“I told you to leave, did I not?” she demands loudly, her voice ringing across the sand. “White people- you never listen.”

“What  _ was  _ that?” Charles bursts out from behind him. He’s still shaking tremulously, projecting fear all over the place, the pulse at his neck beating rapidly. Erik curls one hand over his elbow and tries to pull him closer. Now that they’re out of that maze of horrors he’s starting to realise what they’d just escaped from- his own heart stopping at the realisation that a second too late, and that fucking demon from hell could have gotten Charles. He’d been so close to losing this man forever, this aggravating man who’s definitely made him grow ten extra gray hairs since he’d seen him last.

Charles stiffens a bit, and then draws away from him, causing Erik’s grip to fall. It causes Erik to frown at him, attempting to reach for him before remembering their argument in the corridor with a pang- remembering how Charles had looked at him with a pang, the way he’d glared at him not only in defensive anger but also in vulnerability, something Erik had latched on and torn to shreds. Erik shouldn’t have expected anything else, not after them hurling words at each other with the aim to hit and god had they hit, but still- it stings. 

“My name is Irene, of the Brotherhood , the Warriors of God,” the woman says, striding towards them before stopping in front of Erik. Her eyes are unseeing, greyed out and clearly blind, and yet Erik feels her gaze like a laser beam. “What you just encountered inside Anubis’ statue is not of this world. And  _ you,  _ mind reader, have awakened him- the very creature all of us have been fearful of for the past thousands of years.” Charles flinches at the obvious accusation, going even paler. Erik would have drawn him into his arms at the sight, except he feels unsure if his touch would be accepted- and the thought of that feels abhorrent.

“You’ve been alive for thousands of years?” Raven asks skeptically. “I must say, you don’t look like it at all, gorgeous.” To make it worse, she tops it off with an exaggerated wink, grinning cockily at Irene while the Americans kneeling on the sand goggle at her and the men in robes shift. Irene blinks, before her mouth twitches in a barely there smile, turning in the direction of Raven’s voice and smiling fully. 

“The compliment is not necessary, Raven of Westchester,” she says, now walking towards Raven and- and brushing a lock of her fringe behind her ear, what the fuck. Erik blinks at them both, unsure if he should defend Raven’s honour or just yell at them both because really?  _ Really?  _ “The way you fight had me firmly within your grasp anyway.”

“I would like you to get perhaps a little  _ more  _ into my grasp-”

Erik loses it. “Really? Really? Is now really the time?” Erik snaps at Raven, causing her to roll her eyes. Irene turns back to Erik, a dull flush spreading over her cheeks and a sheepish smile gracing her face. At least she has the decency to be embarrassed.

Charles, worryingly, doesn’t react to any of it at all.

“No mortal weapons can kill him,” Irene continues, eyes blank and unseeing. Erik doesn’t need to be a telepath, however, to know she’s tense, her shoulders drawn up tight and her hand probably clenched on her scimitar within her robes. “I foresaw this. I saw you three reawaken him, but I had still hoped-” she sighs gustily, and then shakes her head, her mouth pursed in a thin, white line. 

“Maybe if you’d been a little more fucking forthcoming than simply saying  _ leave this city,”  _ Erik snarks, annoyed. “How the hell were we supposed to know you were guarding that thing down there?” Irene just looks in the direction of his voice, a look of resignation crossing her face fleetingly before she raises her hand, snapping her fingers. 

Two of her followers step forward from the crowd, bringing forth someone between them- Stryker, Erik realises with a jolt. Only it’s a Stryker that’s had his eyes and tongue clearly ripped out, a bandage over the top half of his face. Charles stumbles forward, a gasp escaping him as he reaches for Stryker- only to freeze as Stryker flinches from his grasp. Erik can’t even bring himself to feel jealous at the sight of Charles reaching for him. “What did you do?” Erik whispers, horrified. 

“It wasn’t them,” Charles speaks up before Irene can do so, his voice high and frightened. “It was the creature back inside, wasn’t it? En Sabah Nur. I’ve heard the name before, but I never imagined-”

“It doesn’t deserve to have a name,” Irene says shortly. “We saved your friend before it could finish him off. Now we must finish what you started, and kill that creature before it consumes the entire planet alive.” She moves for the doorway to the statue of Anubis behind Erik, her robe flowing behind her in a very dramatic fashion. As she brushes past Erik she pauses, before gripping his wrist and looking into his eyes. This close, she seems even more eerie than before- ethereally beautiful with tattoos lining her face, black hair twisted into a knot that has a few strands escaping it, lips and nose angular and sharp, shining with a strange wisdom Erik wants no part of. 

“The man you are hunting,” she says, her voice unbearably gentle now. “I’m a pre-cog, and I’ve seen what he will do. He’s with the creature now.” She abruptly lets go of his hand and dashes for the doorway, disappearing into it before Erik can so much as flinch. 

“What do you mean?” Erik yells after her, heart thundering. That had to mean Shaw. Was Shaw dead? Did Shaw leave the earth without Erik getting there first? “The man I’m hunting- what do you mean?”

“Leave, Erik Lehnsherr!” Irene shouts from inside the doorway because god forbid she ever give a straight answer in her life, the rest of her comrades brushing past Erik, Charles and Raven and following their leader with all their scimitars drawn out. There’s a silence that echoes after them, the sand stirring in their wake as Erik stands there and processes what Irene has just told him. His whole life has been for one purpose only. Without that- without that, what does he have? He feels strangely depressed and hollow inside in the wake of the warning, his heartbeats echoing in his ears like the beats of a drum. 

“We should leave,” Raven says finally, rubbing a hand over her face, looking exhausted. Stryker is groaning and clawing at his face, his companions speaking in soft tones to him. “They were right, it isn’t safe here.”

Erik turns to look at Charles, who’s standing with his arms folded over his chest, staring at the group of Americans with an inscrutable look in his eyes. He is so eerily silent it is unnerving- the same Charles who can’t shut up, not even for a second. What had he experienced in that chamber, when Erik had been unable to get to him? He had seemed almost desperately guilty to see Stryker like that, mutilated and wrong. 

“Not yet,” Erik finally says, when Charles doesn’t respond, continuing to stare off at the group of Americans with that same inscrutable look in his eyes. Maybe his tryst with Stryker had gone deeper than Erik had assumed. That damn lovebite stands out on his neck, stark and unmistakeable. “Shaw-”

“Erik, I like you,” Raven says loudly, placing her arms on her hips and glaring at him. “That does not mean I would hesitate to sacrifice you to that  _ thing  _ in there that ripped out that guy’s tongue and eyes, if it saved my own skin. And yet, out of the kindness in my own heart, I’m offering. Let’s _ leave _ this place.”

“We’re not going back with you lot,” Essex suddenly snaps, turning away from Stryker and stomping up to them. He points a finger at Erik, sneering at him as Erik arches an eyebrow back, duly unimpressed. Up close Essex is ugly, spittle flying out from his mouth and face scrunched in a snarl. “You lot are mutants, and what’s more, he has been trying to kill Shaw the second he laid eyes on him because he’s a psycho, Shaw said so! So if you think we’re coming along, you have another-”

“Shaw,” Charles speaks up for the first time, raising his bloodshot eyes and looking at Essex unflinchingly, “is a murderer and psychopath himself. I’m a telepath, I looked into his mind and saw all of it. He subscribes to Neo-Nazi ideology, has the blood of countless archeologists on his ledger just because they discovered some artefact before him. On top of that, he’s a mutant. Absorbs and redirects energy, which is probably why he’s so obsessed with finding ancient artefacts of power.” He flicks a bit of dirt off his sleeve as Erik stares at him, amazed. Shaw, a  _ mutant? _ Is this what he’d attempted to tell Erik, right before he’d read that incantation out? That had explained a number of things, though- namely, why Shaw was so fucking obsessed with artefacts of power. “Now, if you want to ally yourselves with a murderer who is probably wanted by several different organisations of importance, be my guest.” His eyes briefly shift to Erik’s and then shift away again, guarded. “But I’ll remind you that among us three we got out uninjured, whilst your friend is missing his eyes and tongue  _ and _ the rest of your party is missing. In case you need it put more plainly, Mr. Essex, I’d say odds of surviving the apocalypse rest with us rather than your rather sad party right now.” He storms off, not looking behind as he sets about saddling the camels, the rest of them staring open-mouthed at him in the silence that follows. 

“I suggest listening to him,” Erik tells Essex, not bothering to hide his smug smile. “He’s smart when it counts.”

*

The ride back to the military base in Cairo is silent, the three Americans lagging behind while Charles and Erik lead the pack. Erik can’t get a read on Charles at all, the man still keeping quiet after his outburst back in the city, and that fact scares him more than anything else. He spends almost the entire ride staring at his own hands, clenched on the saddle of the camel. They’re approaching Cairo when Erik finally breaks his silence. “You’ve been quiet,” he tells Charles, urging his camel even closer to him. 

Charles spares him a glance- the first one he’s spared for him since they left the city- and sighs, visibly slumping his shoulders. “I thought you were mad at me,” he reminds him. 

“I was  _ scared,”  _ Erik emphasizes. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the paralyzing terror he’d felt, watching Charles fall back through that wall, those few moments when he didn’t even know if Charles had still been alive. Somewhere along the way Charles has wormed his way firmly into his heart, set up a cozy little place for himself there and Erik still doesn’t know if that fact upsets or pleases him. “I still am. And maybe I’m a little upset, yes, that you reawakened a mummy all by yourself, but you can’t blame me for being terrified.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles whispers, and then ducks his head, staring at the reins again. There is another split second of silence where Erik considers saying something, anything to break the quiet, and then he watches, aghast, as a single tear falls down Charles’ cheek and lands on the back of the camel. How the hell is he supposed to comfort a crying person? “It’s all my fault, and now everyone’s going to die because of me,” Charles whispers, swiping his wrist across his eyes, his breath hitching and his shoulders shaking. 

“Hey, look, don’t cry,” Erik says awkwardly. He winces, looking up for help only to see Raven snoring on the back of her own camel, arms folded behind her head. She could turn that into an Olympic sport, Erik thinks sullenly, falling asleep wherever possible. He turns back to look at Charles who’s definitely sniffling his way into the first stages of crying. He still looks very annoyingly pretty as he does so. “Come on, posh boy, it’s not your fault. Anyone would have done it.” He goes to pat Charles on the back and then withdraws his hand again, feeling even more unwieldy. Gott in Himmel, he is shit at this. 

“But no one  _ did!”  _ Charles wails, clearly distraught. He scrubs at his face, the tears definitely incessantly leaking now. “It was me, Erik! And now I have the blood of that poor man’s missing eyes and tongue on my hands!”

Stryker again. Erik’s blood unexpectedly boils. “Well, he deserved what he got,” he says flatly. “He’s stupid as fuck.” He turns to see Charles gaping at him, tear tracks dried on his face and eyes unexpectedly blue as a result. 

“That was awful of you, Erik,” Charles admonishes, his voice reproachful. “He didn’t ask to be attacked, you know.” His mouth quirks in a barely there smile, but a smile all the same, and Erik feels relieved at seeing it on his face- the gloom had been starting to feel too unnatural. Charles should be smiling all the time. “Is this about me seducing Stryker?”

“No,” Erik lies grumpily, ignoring the way Charles smiles wider, a knowing glint in his eyes as he turns to look at the horizon again. They ride in silence for a while, Charles now grinning slightly, before Erik remembers something with a jolt. “Back at the city, you said the creature was En Sabah Nur,” he says, frowning. “How did you know that?”

Charles immediately stiffens, and doesn’t reply, his grin dropping off his face. That in itself is concerning. The bottom of Erik’s stomach drops out.  _ “Charles.” _

“I first heard that name in Cairo,” he says quickly, fiddling with the reins. “From the mind of my colleague, Dr MacTaggart. Then when the ship sank and we stopped over, I asked the salesgirl I was buying our new clothes from if she knows who En Sabah Nur is.” He smooths down the sleeve of his filthy tunic suddenly, looking thoughtful. “I need to change- I still have two of these left.”

Erik briefly considers burning the rest of the lilac tunics for the sake of his own sanity. “Then?” he prompts, knowing he wasn’t going to like the rest of Charles’ answer.

“She warned me from asking, and I make it a point not to read minds willy-nilly because I respect boundaries- well, sometimes,” Charles says, frowning deeply as he twists the reins between his hand. He turns his head to look at Erik, his gaze worried. “This bit is important- I also heard that name in conjunction with one other; Selene Gallio.” He swallows, going so pale he seems to shine like a diamond in the night of the desert. It would have arrested Erik’s breath, had his words not sounded so dire.

“Go on,” Erik says slowly, not liking the direction that the conversation is heading in, at all. The bits of metal hastily split up back into their separate pieces from that makeshift hammer start vibrating in his pocket, and he exhales, trying to calm himself down. It wouldn’t do to make a mess right in the middle of the fucking desert.

“The creature- he called me Selene,” Charles whispers, his voice soft and yet loud in the quiet stillness of the desert. “He just kept calling me Selene. Then he-” he bites his lip, subsiding as he keeps his gaze averted from Erik. “I mean, that’s what he said. It didn’t take long to connect the dots.”

“What else did he say?” Erik asks warily, his heart thumping even louder. The veins stand out in Charles’ arms, bits of green stark against the white of his skin..

Charles bites his lip again. “Is that  _ really _ necessary?” he laughs weakly, reaching a hand up to fiddle nervously with the collar of his tunic before dropping it back on the camel again. His hair falls into his eyes and he brushes it back behind his ear, another nervous tic. “I mean, I’m sure there are other-”

“Charles,” Erik growls, about this close to stopping all their camels so he can shake some sense into Charles. 

“Oh, fine,” Charles pouts, pulling the reins over the knuckles of his hand. He’s attempting a brave facade but he’s clearly shaken, lip trembling and hands shaking. He stretches out a knot in his hair, eyes flicking to Erik’s briefly before looking away as if unable to stand looking at him for too long. “You know, it’s really not as effective as you think it is, using that tone,” he starts, and then stops at the look on Erik’s face which is probably doing something dangerous right about now.  _ “Fine,  _ he called me a mind reader and he called me beautiful. Honestly, the beautiful part was a smidge more worrying, I think, I mean I know I’m good looking but really that seems like a stretch- Erik, say something, you’re making that face again.”

“What face,” Erik snarls, gritting his teeth so hard he feels like the tooth at the back might pop out. Charles stares back at him, eyes wide and guileless. He looks impossibly young, as if he’s in his early twenties rather than in his late twenties, and it makes something in Erik rise up in a surge of barely withheld violence. “I’m not making any face.”

“Yes, you are,” Charles sighs. “You make that face right before pulling out your metal, and if we were back in Cairo I’d be recommending the location of the nearest therapist. I’m sure it’s fine. Right? He must have been- mistaken, or something.” He lets go of the reins, raising his hands to rub over his arms.

The implications are horrendous. Erik isn’t exactly Charles, he doesn’t have an encyclopaedia of knowledge whirring around inside his own head but he does know that some ancient creature calling you by another name  _ and  _ calling you beautiful can’t mean any good. He’d been right to be worried about Charles being alone in that chamber, and if this means that monster would be coming for Charles next- the metal in his pocket warms up briefly, before Erik exhales and forces it to cool down again. 

Whatever happens, though, he decides as he looks at Charles cough into his hand, puffing out breaths of air into the cold desert, he won’t let anything happen to Charles. That will be unthinkable. He’ll do anything in his power to stop that from happening.

“That’s kind of you, my friend, but it’s not in your power,” Charles says suddenly, and then before Erik can react, starts apologising. “I’m sorry, my telepathy is on the fritz, has been ever since I saw that creature down inside that statue, I didn’t mean-”

“Calm down,” Erik says, snorting as he waves his apology off. “I’m not complaining.” There were more important issues at hand than Charles picking thoughts out of his head, like what had happened to Shaw, for starters. From the way Charles stiffens, he knows he’d overheard him yet again.

Where to even start with Shaw? Erik had never expected the man to be a damn  _ mutant.  _ “I never caught on to him being a mutant,” he says out loud, swallowing repetitively at the dull rage that automatically rises up whenever he thinks of Shaw. “All those years, he kept me in line because of his lies to me about trying to save my mother- I never retaliated, no matter how mad he got.” And Shaw used to get very mad indeed- slapping him round the head whenever he failed to help in parsing out a particular map, punching him in the face whenever he’d been too weak with his control over metal. The coin- still in his pocket right now- had been a favourite of his. Move the coin, or get a kick to his ribs. It’s one of the reasons why Erik’s so well-versed with taking care of broken or bruised ribs. 

Charles simply looks at him, the emotion not one of sympathy but rather, empathy. He reaches over, gripping Erik's hand and curling his fingers into his palm. The soft touch soothes him, and he takes a deep breath. “The day I realised he’d murdered my mother, I crawled into his tent at night and tried to stab him. He woke up instantly, shot me in the side with plastic bullets and ran. I’ve been chasing him ever since.” And now he wouldn’t have to anymore, because that creature had got to Shaw first. Erik isn’t going to thank it any time soon. Shaw had been  _ his  _ to kill. Justice for his mother’s death is  _ his  _ to deal out.

“Mutants’ minds are coloured differently,” Charles says after a while. “They’re brighter, for starters. Much more energy and much more soul. He had been the same, but there had been darkness to him.” He frowns, withdrawing his hand to scratch at the healing cut above his eyebrow. Erik tries not to miss the touch. “If Irene is right and he’s indeed been killed by the creature, I can’t say I regret that turn of events.” Charles eyes him then, briefly, the look in his eyes one of defiance and reproach. Charles, after all, had made no secret of his displeasure at Erik’s plans to murder Shaw. That would forever be the difference between him and Charles- for all his pain, all his agony and trauma, Charles still remained a man a thousand degrees more naive and more good than Erik. “Especially if it takes the job of his murder off your hands.”

“If anyone else talked like that to me, they’d be nursing a broken nose,” Erik reminds him, smiling briefly as Charles throws his head back and finally, finally lets out a full-bellied laugh. It looks good on him, in the lightness of his eyes and the laugh lines around his mouth, brightening up his whole countenance and making him appear years younger. “What makes you so special, hm?”

“You let me get away with it, darling,” Charles chuckles, reaching over to elbow him in the side and almost toppling from the camel. He straightens up, still chuckling to himself. He’d been right, anyway. Erik certainly let him get away with far more than he had any right to.

“I meant what I thought in my head,” Erik says suddenly, and Charles looks at him in bemusement. “I won’t let him get to you. Hell will freeze over first.”

“Oh, my friend,” Charles sighs, averting his eyes and brushing his hair behind his ear, looking up at the sky right then. Erik keeps his gaze fixed on Charles- he knows what the night sky of the desert looks like right now, at any rate. During a normal night, it’s usually full of stars, twinkling like a canopy of fairy lights. Right now, though, it’s blank and dark, as if a film of pitch black slime has descended over it and masked each and every star from view. “I fear that might actually come to pass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope everyone liked this chapter now that things have gotten a little more exciting!! 
> 
> pls pls leave a comment + kudos they encourage me to write faster <33


	4. part iv: the answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw for canon typical violence, creepy behaviour with regards to en sabah nur

_**Erik** _

The very first step to protecting Charles from some sleazy undead mummy is getting him out of Egypt- and fast. Erik already has a plan set. He’ll bundle Charles out of Egypt to maybe Germany or back to Charles’ family mansion, they’ll hide out in there while the mummy gets handled, and Charles will fall into his arms out of lovesick gratitude to Erik for saving him like a dastardly hero out of a romance novel. It’s a good concept. It’s a decent concept.

It is a concept that seems to evade Charles entirely. The next night after their conversation sees them reaching the closest American military base in Cairo, which had accepted them mainly due to Erik’s position as ex black ops. The morning after, Erik comes into his room to pick him up for breakfast before they set out again, which is when he drops the bomb on Erik. 

“I’m sorry,” Erik says blankly, taking in the definitely unpacked suitcase and the messy room with clothes lying around. Charles himself stood beside the suitcase, twisting his hands in a hesitant yet firm expression. “You’re _what?”_

“I’m staying,” Charles says confidently, “and I’d really like it if you stayed with me.” He sits resolutely on the bed, arms folded like he’s planning to stay there and never move again. Well, tough luck, Erik thinks as he snaps his fingers and starts moving the items of Charles’ suitcase that are made of metal back into the bag first. He’s going to be leaving whether he likes it or not. 

Charles yelps as he starts pulling the items back into the suitcase, ignoring the fierce glare that Erik sends at his back. “Absolutely _not_ , are you out of your thrice-damned mind?” Erik demands. “You heard Irene- En Sabah Nur is not of this world. _Ergo,_ we can’t just do whatever you’re planning to do and face him head on.” It’s a simple logical process that he’d expect a man like Charles to listen to and register. Then again, this is Charles he’s talking to- Charles, who’d cracked open an unknown sarcophagus apropos of nothing, Charles who’d read an incantation out without even thinking of the consequences. He’d always known Charles was probably clinically insane. 

Then again, this is a new low. Erik yet again thinks of the fear in Charles’ eyes as he’d talked about what En Sabah Nur had called him, back at that chamber in the city, and his heart clenches painfully. No, Charles staying was absolutely not an option. 

“But we brought him out into the world!” Charles insists, his eyes wide as he grabs Erik’s wrists to stop him from manipulating the items into the case. He yanks at him a little, making him stop in his tracks as he continues looking up at him intently. “Erik, _stop-_ we need to make sure he goes back to where he came from!”

_“We?”_ Erik says dangerously, his eyes flashing. He yanks his hands out of Charles’ grip, continuing to glare at him as the panic starts to take over a little. “I didn’t read the damn book, Charles.” He regrets it the second Charles takes a step back, eyes going wide and bottom lip trembling before he visibly takes hold of himself again.

“Fine,” Charles says shakily, the waver in his voice now making Erik feel even worse than before. He reaches for Charles, flinching when he takes a step back and shakes his head. “Fine, I read it, so I’ll make sure that I defeat him.” He runs a hand through his hair and tilts his head up, glaring fiercely at Erik.

Absolutely insane. A psychopath. Erik briefly entertains the urge of bashing Charles' head against the wall. At least he’d maybe go back to Westchester unconscious. 

Erik takes a deep breath, rubbing at his forehead before lowering his hand again. “This is a creature that upon reawakening,” he says, low and measured, pretty confident that his face is twisted in a fearsome scowl, “proceeded to unleash the seven plagues of Old on Earth. And _then,_ as if that wasn’t enough, proceeded to release those fucking man eating beetles and _then_ rip the eyes and tongue out from that stupid American. How, Charles, do you intend to stop him?”

“There’s something, I’m sure,” Charles says desperately as he runs his hand through his hair again, twisting his fingers in the brown locks a little. His eyes look wild and crazed, so intensely blue in the relative bore of the room. “A- a spell, or a book, or something-I’d have to do a little research-”

“I thought you didn’t believe in curses,” Erik snaps.

“I thought _you_ didn’t run from situations like a coward,” Charles snaps back, glaring now and jabbing a finger into his chest. “Was it only ever about Shaw for you?” _Was leading me to that city only a means to an end for you?_ He clearly hadn’t meant to project that thought, but Erik hears it loud and clear anyway, as loud and clear as church bells. The words hit their mark, digging their claws in deep and leaving bloody gouges that are sure to scar.

Erik rears back and sucks in a breath, stunned as the words hang in the air. Of course it had been, at first. His entire life’s _work_ had been about ending Shaw, about seeing that man dead for the pain he had brought into Erik’s life. It had been about Shaw at the start, getting that fucker alone and then murdering him like he should have done all those years ago. 

And then it had become about Charles, about seeing him alive and well, about seeing him happy in the middle of that city, about seeing him safe from that monster who’d _dared_ to call him beautiful because no one, no one other than Erik, should call him that. Charles looks at him, shame and defiance wrought in every line of his gaze and all Erik feels is a bone-deep weariness.

“I’m not a coward,” Erik says, unfolding his arms with a defeated air. He knows when he’s about to lose a fight. “But I know which are the battles I need to fight and which are the ones I’ve lost from the very start. I don’t think I need to tell you which category this one falls into.”

Charles’ arms loosen, falling to his sides as the look in his eyes becomes all the more imploring. “Erik,” he says- no, begs. “Erik, _please-”_

“Just go back to Westchester,” Erik pleads, aware that his voice shakes, the desperation ringing through clear and true. “We’ll die here. And maybe we’ll die in Westchester too, but we would have lived a little longer before that. Charles, _listen to me.”_

Charles stares at him, lost and confused and desperate and that’s when Erik finally knows- he’s lost the argument. “I can’t,” Charles whispers, stepping back and running a hand over his face, and Erik emits a frustrated howl, turning on his heel and storming out the door. The irritation, anger, fury, panic and desperation courses through his veins, sending his heart thundering in his ears and every nerve of him alive, and he stops briefly to level a punch at the wall that causes his knuckles to bruise and Charles to suck in a sharp breath from behind him.

Erik doesn’t really have any idea where he’s going, his head still pounding from the sheer fury he feels at Charles for being so goddamn obstinate. As he thunders down the steps, blood pounding in his ears, he bumps into someone in a robe. “Excuse me,” he snaps, until he looks up and realises the man has his entire face covered, thin and skeletal even with the robe hanging off him.

“Can I help you?” Erik asks, wary. “Hospital’s not here, pal.” 

The man mutters something unintelligible, and then forcibly pushes past Erik, continuing to walk down the hallway. Erik stares after him, bemused, before he shakes his head and continues to walk down the stairs, thinking once again of Charles and feeling very furious indeed. He’s unaware of where he’s heading to, and he somehow ends up finding himself at the bar, Raven sitting on a stool and nursing a shot of what looks like straight vodka morosely. 

“Is your brother always like that?” Erik growls, sliding onto a stool beside her and calling for a shot as well. 

“Irritating? Making decisions for others? Martyr complex to hell and back? Yes,” Raven snorts, finally looking up from the shot. She’s bleary eyed, her eyebrows scrunched together in an impressive frown that makes Erik do a double take. In all their time together, Erik doesn’t think he’s ever seen Raven any less than- well, annoyingly put together, accepting everything that was thrown their way with relative aplomb. She’d been terrified back at Hamunaptra after En Sabah Nur had been awakened, but then all of them were. “I used to beg him to stop protecting me from our stepfather to no avail.”

“He told me about that,” Erik says, downing the vodka in one shot and calling for another. Raven suddenly falls silent, and he looks to the side just to find her staring at him, mouth ajar with an incredulous look on her face. Erik frowns at her. “Something wrong?”

“No, I just- he _told_ you about Kurt? Like, willingly?” Raven asks, her expression full of disbelief. “You know, you two have been weird since the ship, but I didn’t know he had it this bad, dear god.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Erik asks, frowning again. Of course he’d known what Charles had told him about his stepfather wasn’t one he often went on and on about constantly- Erik knew better than most, the pain of being ashamed of what your childhood had been like, even if you logically had no control over it at all. That didn’t mean anything special- Erik had just been there, a listening ear. Neither did Erik telling him about Shaw mean anything either, even if Erik wasn’t in the habit of just telling everybody that particular story- Charles had just been there. It had nothing to do with how compassionate Charles seemed to be, how his own eyes had watered when he’d described how his mother had died in those caves, how Charles had listened and then truly apologised like he did feel the remorse for Erik having lost his mother in such a brutal manner, how Charles had looked up, heartachingly beautiful in the night of the desert and making Erik want to drive a knife across his own stomach and spill his guts out to him-

_Dear god,_ Erik thinks in dismay. 

The bartender comes over, slamming a shot of vodka in front of Erik and refilling Raven’s glass. “You two have it so simple,” Raven says grumpily into her shot glass, picking it up and swilling the liquid around a few times. “You two meet and instantly fall in love. Meanwhile, I keep making a fool of myself to the woman of my dreams, and now I don’t even know if she’s alive.” 

“Is this-” Erik pauses, and then turns to look at her incredulously. She truly is miserable, Erik realises, glaring down at her glass and resting her chin on the palm of her hand. There’s frown lines written across her forehead, even her usually brilliantly auburn hair hanging limply, a faded sort of red. “Is this about that Irene woman? She lives in the desert, Raven.”

“Oh, and?” Raven snaps, glowering at him instantly. “We found you in a prison, Erik.”

“Touche,” Erik snorts. “I’m sure she’s fine, she knew what she was going on about.” 

Raven doesn’t look convinced, as she swills the vodka in her glass a couple more times before lifting it to her mouth, taking a sip. Almost instantly she’s spitting it out across the tabletop, gagging and rubbing at her mouth. “What the fuck!” she spits, still gagging and sticking her tongue out as Erik gapes at her. “That was- that tasted like _blood._ ”

There’s a split second, before the sounds of men spitting out their drinks and gagging follow her and echo from all over the bar, the bartender stops in the middle of wiping down a glass and looks up in confusion. Erik empties his shot over the counter, watching with wide eyes as a thick, viscous red liquid pours all out over the wood. He twists around in his seat, staring at the fountain in the middle of the bar. Before, it had been spouting out water- now, it spouts out blood. 

“The plagues,” Raven breathes, sounding full of horror. “Locusts, frogs-”

“And the rivers of Egypt went red and were as blood,” Erik recites, remembering the tales from when his mother had told him, his own eyes widening. It shouldn’t be possible and yet- and yet, this can be no coincidence. En Sabah Nur was here. Erik’s mind flashes back and he jumps up, recalling that man in robes he’d bumped into in the stairs. 

“Charles,” Erik gasps, jumping up. “Raven, Charles is-”

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Raven snaps, her form rippling in terror. _“Run!”_

  
  


**_Charles_ **

Charles tells himself he isn’t truly hurt as he walks off in search of whoever is in charge of the base. He’d just known Erik for a few days, after all. He couldn’t have possibly expected Erik to accompany him, and it was foolhardy of him to do so. 

Still, there’s the painful sting of rejection sitting low in his gut, Erik telling him that he hadn’t been the one to read that book out loud reverberating through his head like a sick mantra. It had hurt even more because somewhere along the way, Erik had bulldozed right into his heart, carved out an area for himself and set up camp like he’d always been there right from the start. Erik aggravated him so _much-_ his no-nonsense attitude breezing through everything, his utter confidence and arrogance shining out of him, his refusal to just bend a little to what anyone else thought and his rage, all of his rage darkening the fortress in his mind, his hair falling into his eyes and the way he towered over him, strong and confident- but even so, he knows he’s in love with the man anyway, yearning for the tiniest hint of pleasure and approval from those pale, green eyes. 

Erik had been right, either way- he _didn’t_ read the book, and therefore could not possibly understand what it was truly like to know that the fate of the entire world has been doomed, solely by your hand. They could be reaching an apocalypse, Charles knows that just by the look of the sky, and it would be all because Charles had very stupidly, as if he wasn’t a bloody educated professor of archaeology, reawakened a fucking mummy from the dead. 

“You think you’re so smart, boy, you and your big brain,” Kurt had spat at him once, kicking at his ribs while Charles had mentally ordered Raven to stay inside the closet. “It will kill you one day, you hear me? It will kill you and I’ll be there to watch!”

Kurt isn’t here to watch, Charles thinks resignedly as he leans against a wall in the courtyard, but he’d been right anyway. 

The courtyard is empty, just a few soldiers lazing about as Charles keeps his eyes closed, head turned up to the ceiling. There’s the flash of thunder striking like a whipcrack, loud and abrupt, a flash of heat, but Charles still keeps his eyes closed- and then jumps up about a foot into the air when a hand lands on his arm. 

“Relax, it’s me,” Erik barks when Charles spins around, already placing his arms up in a combat-ready position. “What the fuck were you doing? You weren’t in your room, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” Up close, Erik looks terrible- gorgeous even as he does so, pupils constricted in fear and face ashen white from panic. His stubble’s growing in again, tiny brown hairs coating his jaw and upper lip and Charles longs to smooth his hand along the line of it, feel them scratch at the soft skin of his palm.

“I thought,” Charles stares at him, drinking in the sight of him. He’d assumed Erik would be long gone by now, the sound of his fist smashing into the wall still crackling in his ears. “I thought you’d left.”

“You-” Erik stares at him, and then sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose briefly. “No, I’d never leave. God knows why, but I’m not leaving.” They stare at each other for a second, a hint of an apology and a hell lot of fury in Erik’s eyes and Charles knows, without a doubt, that Erik means what he says. He means it, he won’t leave Charles, not like so many others have done over the course of Charles’ life.

“Look, I hate to break this up, I really do,” Raven says, her voice tight as she emerges from behind Erik, “but we need to check on the others.”

“Why?” Erik barks. “They’re humans.” _And they can’t stand us,_ his mind supplies, which is unfortunately true. Stryker’s an idiot through and through, but both Essex and Kelly are selfish bastards as well, looking out for themselves first and operating on instincts that tell them to sell out their companions at the earliest opportunity made available. 

They were still people, though. Living, breathing beings that deserved to live out the rest of their lives, no matter how rotten they would undoubtedly be. “Let’s go,” Charles says, and at Erik’s look, adds reproachfully, “One of them has been hurt, Erik. We should make sure the others are safe.”

“He deserved it,” Erik says flatly, following behind Charles. 

Halfway up the stairs they run into Essex, who gives them a distrustful look, keeping away from them as his brain loudly screams of disrespect against the filthy mutants in front of him. “Why aren’t you with the rest?” Charles asks, not bothering to keep his voice polite.

“Stryker needs help and he’s fucked up,” Essex says, narrowing his eyes. “And it’s fucking scary to look at him, man. I don’t know how he’s still breathing.” 

“Right,” Charles says as they descend on the landing of the storey where the Americans are located. “I suppose we should-”

There’s a sudden, unearthly scream echoing from the very room the Americans are in. All four of them stare at each other, aghast, before they’re tearing down the hallway and towards the room. Erik gets there first and he stops in the doorway, looking at something in particular, growing so stiff he’s a plank of wood. Charles edges out from behind him and stares, his heart lodged somewhere in his throat at the scene before him. 

The room is neat. Indescribably neat, all the cabinets and chairs in place as they should be, a very nice curtain fluttering near the window, the wallpaper a muted beige colour, and everything is as it should be- save for the two hollowed out husks in the middle of the room. En Sabah Nur and, surprisingly enough, Sebastian Shaw are both standing over their bodies, Shaw in a strange sort of golden armour and helmet as he smirks, standing taller than he has ever done before, a weird energy crackling at his fingertips. And En Sabah Nur-

Charles swallows. En Sabah Nur looks horrendous, a malformed aberration that should never be permitted to walk the earth. He’s half formed already, his cheeks with the constitution of that corpse like figure he’d encountered back in the city, the rest of him covered in navy blue leathery skin that must be his natural form. His eyes are bright yellow, dead and soulless. He’s a monster.

Charles swallows, pressing his back against the wall. That mind-numbing terror he’d felt back in the city rushes back as En Sabah Nur turns to look at him, and smiles. 

_My child,_ he projects into Charles’ mind, practised and experienced and clear. Charles barely registers Essex falling to his knees beside his friends, Raven and Erik rushing at Shaw who bats them away, laughing with the giddiness of someone who knows he’s something else entirely, something unbeatable. There’s the sounds of fighting, a crash as Raven is thrown into the cabinet, as Erik rips out the metal from the wardrobe with an agonized howl. _You have awakened me._

“I didn’t mean to,” Charles whispers. Everyone else is busy- or everyone else has been _kept_ busy, Charles realises with dawning horror. He’s deliberately placed a compulsion of indifference over the both of them- the others would acknowledge that they’re there, but they won’t be able to register it. The air shimmers beside Charles- a force field as well, Charles thinks with despair. Who did En Sabah Nur used to be? 

Charles can break the compulsion, he’s not an omega level mutant for nothing. He _has_ to try. _Erik,_ he thinks, but gets no response. A quick glance tells him Shaw has just blown Erik back against the cabinet, Erik hunched over on the floor and cradling his side with his face twisted in a snarl. There’s a bleeding scratch over his cheek, another one on the side of his neck. He’s pale and sweaty, definitely already looking exhausted although it must have just been a minute of fighting. Shaw’s slowly killing him, will continue to kill him until there’s nothing left. _“Erik,”_ Charles whimpers, trying to step out of the protective circle En Sabah Nur has locked him within, to no avail. The air in front of him refuses to budge, a barrier keeping him away. 

“I should have known, you asshole,” Erik is sneering, blood running down his chin. Raven’s at his side, helping him back up again as he glares at Shaw, fierce and furious and all the more beautiful for it. A storm all on his own, destroying anyone who comes too close- everyone except Shaw, it would seem. “Anything to save your own skin, right? Even if it means the end of everything.”

“He didn’t just save my skin, Lehnsherr,” Shaw roars, raising his arms. He looks like a caricature of a low-grade villain, the kind in the evening soap operas Charles’ mother used to like to pretend to watch. “He made me _better!”_

_Erik,_ Charles thinks, closing his eyes again. He can smell the stench coming off En Sabah Nur in waves, a rotting smell that makes his stomach turn over itself. _Erik, help me. Erik!_

“I’ll make you immortal, my child,” En Sabah Nur says, his voice gravelly and low as he steps closer. He speaks in Arabic, the normally beautiful consonants wrong and twisted on his tongue. The despair in Charles sinks even lower, making his heart thunder faster and his head ache even more. “I’ll make you my Consort.”

Oh, _hell_ no. Charles lashes out with his telepathy, delivering the equivalent of a punch to him. All En Sabah Nur does is stumble back slightly, before straightening up and smiling at him. Charles has the brief impression of being judged and compared to a kitten- and why shouldn’t he be? To En Sabah Nur, someone who’s just defeated death, who can unleash plagues on Earth, who can enforce a compulsion and a force field with no exertion at all, he must be nothing more than an insect. Irrelevant, and easily tamped down. _Erik,_ he thinks desperately again. 

“You are powerful, mind reader,” En Sabah Nur continues. “You will make a fine addition to my empire.” He steps even closer, and that’s when Charles finally loses it. 

_ERIK!_ he screams, and Erik’s head snaps up from where he’d been standing, fist raised with several floating bullets surrounding his figure. Shaw takes advantage of the momentary distraction, pushing Raven off and running out of the door. Erik doesn’t even notice, his eyes on both Charles and En Sabah Nur. There’s a confused look on his face, before horror gradually steals over. 

“Charles,” he breathes, and then he gasps. _“Charles!”_ The bullets are zooming forwards, plowing right into En Sabah Nur as the force field shudders before collapsing. Charles seizes the chance instantly, staggering across the wall and falling against the door before yanking it open, his legs so weak from the fear and the relief of escape he’s unable to do anything but collapse onto his haunches. En Sabah Nur hisses in formidable fury, the bullets falling as the air shimmers around him.

“Get _away_ from him!” Erik snarls, storming forward and continuing to hurl bullets at him, the rifles firing away at his sides. It seems to work for a few seconds or so, Charles watching with wide eyes before the rifles stop suddenly, as En Sabah Nur howls with laughter, the parts of him broken by the bullets reforming again. He raises his hands, staring directly at Erik, and Charles swallows, preparing himself to enter En Sabah Nur’s mind because no way in hell will he ever let this horrid abomination of a man hurt _his_ Erik-

And then stares as a white cat walks past him from outside the door and hisses at En Sabah Nur.

The change is instantaneous. En Sabah Nur turns white, screaming in terror and promptly disintegrates back into sand, disappearing out of the window. There’s a shocked sort of silence that follows as Erik stares into the space that’s been vacated, his jaw falling open as his hand remains stretched out. Raven sits up, running a hand through her hair that’s streaked with dirt, shell-shocked. Essex, the utterly useless man that he is, is still huddled over the bodies of his friends. 

“Cat,” Charles croaks into the silence. “Cats- he’s terrified of cats. They’re said to be protectors, and he’s a monster that was never meant to exist.” He clears his throat, as the cat pads over to him, curling over his lap and rubbing her head against the palm of his hand. He exhales in relief, scratching behind her ears and smiling slightly as she purrs. “Good girl,” he murmurs, before looking up at the rest of them. 

Erik looks like hell. The cut over his cheek is sluggishly bleeding and there’s another one on his jaw, various scrapes over his forearms and his shirt is torn to all hell. Despite all that he still looks fearsome, gorgeously slow with a stray lock of brown hair falling over his temple, scowl stretching over his face again as he runs to Charles and crashes onto his knees in front of him. “Are _you_ okay?” he asks roughly, stretching a hand out to him before wincing and drawing it back. “What did he do to you?” 

Charles remembers with sudden sharp clarity the look En Sabah Nur had, the way he’d said he would make Charles his Consort. If he told Erik that, he suspects Erik might actually explode into a ball of flames, or at the very least bring the entire building down on them. “Nothing,” he says finally, his voice hoarse with the aftereffects of the battle. “We need to find some answers, we can’t keep going in blind like this. He’s- he’s almost freakishly powerful.”

Erik inspects him for a few seconds with a suspicious look in his eyes, as if about to call him out on his lie, and then finally nods with his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Okay, posh boy,” he says easily, and _god_ if Charles doesn’t feel absolutely relieved to hear that blasted nickname now, the warmth curling over his chest and heating up his insides. Erik had gotten to him in time. It’s going to be fine. It will be fine. 

“Moira,” Raven says suddenly, and both of them look up. “Moira- she knew something, she tried to forbid us from searching for the city. She must know something, right?”

“Right,” Charles sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “She’ll be at the university.”

“Then we’ll go to the university,” Erik says simply. He tugs the cat from Charles’ hands, holding it gently under his arm like one might hold a book. At Charles’ look, he shrugs. “Hey, this cat saved your life,” he points out. “I’m keeping the little shit around.”

*

They decide to leave the cat with Essex back at base, the man finally having been so shaken by the death of his friends that he has grudgingly decided to at least stop viewing them with distrust. The sky is streaked with occasional flashes of fire now, fire and lightning that makes something in Charles shrink with despair. 

Once they reach the university, Charles leads the way to Moira’s office. They find Moira anxiously pacing the length of her office, as someone very, very familiar sits on the desk, her hood down and her scimitar left to lean against the far wall. “You!” Erik shouts at Irene, as he enters from behind Charles. He storms forward, glaring at Irene and only stopping when Charles lays a hand on his forearm. “I thought you were going to handle En Sabah Nur! And you told me Shaw was dead!”

“Contrary to you, I knew we would be meeting again,” Irene says wryly, a disdainful look on her face. It melts into a bright smile as she turns to Raven, who’s grinning back, the look on his sister's face so painfully relieved and exposed that Charles has to look away to give her space. He supposes he can see it, why Raven seems to be so enamoured- Irene _is_ beautiful in the way buildings are beautiful, tall and so majestic she appears almost deity-like. She turns to look at Charles and her face softens. “I do apologise, Dr. Xavier. He turned out to be too powerful for even my tribe- a few of my comrades are dead. I myself managed to escape only by the skin of my teeth”

“It’s very much alright, Irene. Please, do call me Charles,” Charles says softly, running a hand over his face and feeling the exhaustion ache in his bones before turning to look at Moira, who’s glaring back with her arms folded across her chest. “Hey, Moira.”

“Don’t you _hey, Moira_ me,” Moira snaps, glaring heavily at Charles. She’s about as furious as Charles has ever seen her, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowed in a fearsome scowl. “You lied to me! You are in so, _so_ much trouble, Xavier.”

“You know, _lie_ is a really strong world,” Charles starts, and then cowers slightly when Moira actually growls, her hackles rising in anger. “Look, I know this is my fault, and I’ll fix it, I will!”

“This is bigger than just you,” Irene says flatly, sitting herself down on the edge of the table. In the simplicity of the office she appears otherworldly, the tattoos over her face in glorious ink shining in the light. Raven seems unable to take her eyes off her, the look in her eyes one of awe and another unnameable emotion. “You’re not at fault. Sooner or later, someone else would have read that book.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, and sighs. 

“How do you know each other?” Raven speaks up for the first time, her voice rough and more than a little rude. “You and Moira, that is.”

“Moira is our contact in society,” Irene says, smiling slightly at Raven. In return, Raven turns pink, refusing to meet Charles’ knowing gaze. Perhaps Charles should be slightly more concerned about the mysterious desert lady clearly catching feelings for his baby sister, but he can’t help it- Raven’s teased him about his feelings for Erik for days now. It’s time to get some of his own back. “I only told you all that I was part of the Brotherhood, I didn’t say what we did. The Brotherhood has existed for years- we are a secret society of mutants, guarding the City of the Dead ever since the last generation of the kingdom of pharaohs imprisoned En Sabah Nur in his cage.” 

Erik sits heavily down in a cushion-backed chair as Charles parks himself on the arm of it, feeling Erik wind his arm around his waist. The touch is light and yet it grounds him, making him take a deep fortifying breath and focus on the answers he’s finally about to receive. “And who is En Sabah Nur?” he asks. 

“The first mutant,” Moira speaks up this time, glaring at all three of them as she bends down, rifling through something in the drawers beneath her desk. She takes it out and motions for all of them to come closer, Irene sliding off of the desk and walking over to lean against the wall, staring out of the window. 

They do so, peering at the documents laid out across the desk. It’s photographs- dozens of them, of hieroglyphs telling a different story on each slab of stone. Charles picks up one of them, bringing it closer to his eyes and inspecting each carving. The carvings are old, clearly weathered through time and yet clear as day. “He’s existed since the start of time,” Moira continues. “He has many different names, of course, but the very last one he went by was En Sabah Nur. We had a name for him, in the Brotherhood- Apocalypse.”

“Because his revival would literally bring about the Apocalypse,” Raven breathes, picking up another photograph. Erik is tense beside him, muscles locked in what is probably alarm or just vigilance as he peers over Charles’ shoulder. His breaths come out in puffs against Charles’ cheek, the warmth of him strangely comforting. 

“See, En Sabah Nur was greedy,” Moira says, sharp and pointed. “He had the ability to transfer his consciousness from body to body, and take on the powers of that body. Some mutants have a primary mutation, others have secondary ones, right? Well, this guy,” she jabs at the book, her face still twisted in an irritable scowl, “had _hundreds.”_

Hence the way he’d been able to force that compulsion and force field with little to no sweat at all, like it had been a matter of little effort to him. The implications make Charles’ heartrate speed up at a pace that makes his ribs ache, the blood leeched out from his face in panic. Erik sucks in a breath, sharp. Even Raven is frowning, her face white from the fear. 

Moira looks up and swallows, taking in the looks on their faces. “Every civilization he was in fell,” she continues, gentling her tone at the audible fear in the room. “Do you know how the Brotherhood managed to capture him, in the end? He fell in love. Selene Gallio, the powerful wife of the pharaoh, just a young girl and best friends with the pharaoh’s son-”

“Selene,” Charles breathes, and claps a hand over his mouth, immersed in shock. He’s transported to that chamber all at once, the air around him filthy and rotting, En Sabah Nur’s rotting corpse in front of him and calling him by her name. 

At his words Irene turns her head from the window, frowning in consternation. “You know that name,” she questions, her eyebrows arching. “You said it back in the city, of course, but I never thought to ask you how you came by it.”

“I do, I- I pulled it out of your head, Moira,” he says shakily, rubbing at his jaw before swallowing and looking up. Erik is staring at him in horror, as if he knows what Charles is about to say. And he does- Charles had told him so, in that camel ride back to Cairo, had wanted to laugh as Erik had looked so furious Charles had almost expected him to disembark and march back to the city they’d just escaped from. “And he, um, he called me by that?”

“He called you by that?” Moira asks sharply, her eyes widening in horror, and when Charles nods, curses so foully it makes Charles want to laugh, bizarrely enough. She shakes her head, rubbing a hand over her chin and flipping forcefully through the photographs again. “Oh, no, no, this isn’t good-”

“Explain,” Erik barks. He tugs Charles closer to him, almost unconsciously, his hand gripped tight over Charles’ elbow as his emotions bleed through into Charles’ mind- panic, fear, despair, and a sense of anticipatory loss. _You’re not going to lose me, Erik,_ Charles thinks desperately, only for Erik to tug him even closer, the panic intensifying.

“He’s been in love with her for over four thousand centuries,” Irene says, turning her face to the front. The lines around her mouth betray her tension, how frightened she really is. “Selene Gallio, his one love. He fell for her hard, and he gave up on his attempts to live forever by transferring his sense of self to instead have her by his side. What he didn't know is that Selene’s best friend, the son of the pharaoh who was a telepath more powerful than her, caught on to their plans of killing the Pharaoh and taking over Egypt with her at his side. He approached the Brotherhood for help, though the pharaoh was murdered anyway- the Brotherhood managed to capture En Sabah Nur right after, when he’d been in the middle of transferring his consciousness to the son whom he’d kidnapped and also resurrecting Selene, who’d killed herself before she could be taken in as well. That’s how he was able to be captured, so the legend goes- it would have never happened without the son of the pharaoh aiding the Brotherhood. That is also what we can expect him to do, now that he’s returned- regenerate fully, and then resurrect his dead lover.”

“What?” Charles blinks. This is a turn he hadn’t been expecting. “The son of the pharaoh was a telepath?” It all sounded a little too theatrical to be true- like a far fetched plot of an altogether terrible movie.

“It figures that another powerful telepath would make En Sabah Nur rise again,” Irene jokes, clearly at Charles’ expense, and then turns her head to Raven’s direction, giving her a full-bodied smirk. Raven winks back, laughing as well while Charles scowls at her. It was all too well for them to joke- _they_ weren’t in possession of the knowledge that they were directly responsible for the start of the ensuing apocalypse. If Charles had been in full possession of his mental faculties, he would have teased Raven for the blatant flirting right in front of him. He’s not, though, not at all, and instead he feels a deep, overwhelming fear consuming him whole. “Who knows? Maybe it’s a telepath thing- only a telepath can make him rise, and only a telepath will thus make him fall. We don’t know for sure, when it comes to legends like these, passed down more like a folk tale than any other.” Irene turns his gaze to Charles. “You said he called you Selene.”

“I- yes,” Charles says, blowing out a nervous breath and rubbing at the side of his neck. “But he also called me- things. He called me a mind reader, and said I’m beautiful and I’m going to be his consort.” That had been the most unsettling aspect of it all, En Sabah Nur’s threat to make him a consort. Charles isn’t naive- he knows what that means, what the hungry look in En Sabah Nur had implied. Even the thought of it makes that deep fear in Charles bubble up like acid.

Moira whistles through her teeth, immediately opening a book and flipping through it as a curious look enters her eyes. “Well, this does tell us very interesting things about the notion of homosexuality in Ancient Egypt and whether or not it was accepted-”

_“Moira!”_ Charles exclaims, barely restraining his urge to throttle the life out of her. Erik’s gone completely still at his side, his face a stone mask and his hands clenched into fists at his side. The metal in the room has started to lightly vibrate, the dark and insidious rage pouring off Erik’s mind in waves that threaten to swallow the entire room and all its occupants up whole. He looks as if a slight wind might blow him over. “Is now really the time?”

“You were the one to read the book,” Irene says, ignoring Moira eagerly flipping through the book as she folds her arms, tapping her elbows while deep in thought. “I’d say he wants you as a human sacrifice to resurrect Selene. But you’re also a powerful telepath, and on top of that, good-looking. It is not a stretch to think he’d want such power ruling by his side.”

“What do you mean to say,” Erik finally asks, gritting his teeth so hard Charles is pretty sure Essex back at the base would be able to hear it. The cabinet at the corner of the room is definitely floating a few inches off the ground, Raven sending it a wary look before scuttling an inch closer to Irene. “He can’t both want to- to force Charles, and kill him.”

“Unless he wants to put the soul of Selene Gallio into Charles,” Raven says suddenly. “Two birds with one stone- he gets Charles’ hot bod and Selene’s spirit that he’d fallen in love with. Sorry, Charles,” she adds, though she’s smirking a little. Of course she’s finding it funny- the Raven he knows had always coped with everything with a copious amount of humour, and the anxiety she’s truly feeling shows in the tightness around her eyes and mouth.

“Is there any way to stop him?” Erik demands, a thin edge of fear to his voice. It makes Charles sidle close, draw his elbow out of Erik’s grip to twist his fingers between Erik’s and Erik sends him a look full of an unnamed emotion, swallowing repetitively as his eyes gleam brightly in the office. “I don’t think it needs to be said, but we don’t want Charles to die, do we?” 

Irene’s gaze drifts to the right of them at the sound of Erik’s voice like they’re a particularly interesting exhibit. “No, we don’t,” she says after a while, nodding agreeably. “And we don’t want your powers falling in the hands of someone who wants to rule the world.”

“I know you said he’s invincible,” Erik says, a hint of desperation as he draws away from Charles, pacing the room once again. “But there has to be some way we can defeat him. A- a curse, a failsafe, or-”

Everything in Charles suddenly goes cold, very suddenly. It’s one thing to be told that En Sabah Nur is invincible- another to understand that, to fully digest and acknowledge that he has a fucking god on his heels. How do you outrun that, outrun not just a force of nature, but a fucking powerful and invincible one at that? All those hours ago, Erik had been right- this is a battle they’d lost from the very start. The fear digging its claws beneath Charles’ rib cage settles in deeper, making him wrap his arms tightly around himself and ignore Erik’s concerned look sent his way.

“He reacted strangely when that cat entered the room,” Erik continues roughly, running a hand through his hair. Even now, in the throes of panic and fear, he’s still utterly gorgeous as his suspenders strain against the muscles of his shoulders, his biceps straining against his sleeves as his eyes take on a wild and crazed tint. “Throw me a bone here.”

“Cats are symbols of the goddess Bastet, so they’re popularly seen as house guardians, protectors against evil,” Moira explains, finally setting the book down. “So it stands to reason that cats would scare him off- at least until he manages to fully regenerate again.”

“So we stop him from regenerating,” Erik exhales, nodding vigorously. “Wasn’t there a chest full of jars?” 

“Yeah, the Americans opened it,” Raven points out. “Come to think of it-“

“That’s why they’ve all been getting killed off, one by one,” Charles breathes in shock, realisation settling in. “First Stryker, and then Kelly.” Essex would be next- and they’d left him alone, back at the base.

_Nothing waits for you but death,_ Erik had said. Charles should have listened, should have heeded his words and chucked that map when Raven had handed it to him, never mind the lure of ancient history and treasures long forgotten. Then again, that had been the one thing he’d never been particularly good at- listening to advice that would have been truly for his own good.

“We can’t just go off on stopping him from regenerating,” Raven says suddenly, making them all stop in their tracks and stare at her. “What if we fail? What if he regenerates fully?”

“If he does, you are doomed,” Irene intones, her tone serious and grave. “He will have Charles by his side, dead or alive. And then he will consume the earth whole.” She’s pale, the pallor of her skin ashen and the fear coming off her in waves and overtaking Charles completely. The entire room stinks of acrid fear and horror at the implications of what’s about to happen, not just to the world but to Charles as well. Irene turns her head to the left of Charles and Charles doesn’t even need to dip into the pool of her mind to know her thoughts, to know what she’s thinking. _Poor boy. He’ll die soon._

Charles, very abruptly, has had quite enough of it all.

“Right,” he says abruptly. “Excuse me, will you?” He pushes past Erik, who tries to grab at him, ignoring all their calls and rushes out of the room. The door slams shut behind him as he explodes out into the corridor alongside the courtyard of the campus. The sky is still flashing lightning and fire and he stomps alongside the neat path kicking at the wall in a fit of rage, cursing and hobbling when all it does is make his toe explode in pain. 

All he’d wanted to do was search for a city. That had been _it._ Since when was discovery punished like this?

There’s a noise behind him- slow and measured footsteps, the presence of an ordered mind that Charles already knows as well as the back of his own hand, and he sighs. “Followed me down, have you?”

“We’re worried,” Erik says, sounding cautious. “It’s a lot of pressure on you.”

“Oh, no, I’m having a breeze of a time,” Charles snipes, turning to glare at him. Erik’s there, tall and gorgeous and somehow still unreachable, especially now that Charles knows there’s a noose around his own neck that’s ready to tighten itself at a moment’s notice. “You know, having a thousand year old mummy chase you down- makes one feel cherished.”

“Charles,” Erik says quietly, his voice sore and making him sound so achingly lost. In the face of that, Charles deflates. 

“I’m scared, Erik,” he says, and his voice ends up coming out so young and raw it makes him wince. Erik just looks at him, so lost and desperate, the line of his jaw tight and the shade of his eyes stark with emotion. His hands tremble at his side, his skin white with fear. He looks like he’d shatter to pieces right there if he could. “I didn’t want this. You have to believe me.”

“I do,” Erik says, and he steps forward, capturing one of Charles’ hands in his own and squeezing. It’s a light touch, fragile and barely there and yet- it’s the most comforting thing Charles has ever felt. He breathes in, the comforting scent of Erik surrounding him like a warm embrace. “Charles, stop freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out!” Charles screams, and then winces at the contradiction in his words. “I’m just- how do we stop him? He’s the first mutant. He’s a _god.”_

“I’ll find a way out,” Erik says mutinously. “We’ll stay in the damn library of this place if we have to all night long. I’m _not_ letting you go, do you hear me?” His hands release Charles’ own, coming to wrap around his waist and tug him close. Charles feels cocooned by the warmth, cosseted in a strange heat. Erik’s eyes are boring into his own, pale green and beautiful, and Charles knows that even if En Sabah Nur himself were to come here into this courtyard, he wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from Erik.

Charles has never been in love before. Is this what it feels like, he wonders, looking up into Erik’s gaze, like the world itself is shifting under his feet? Is this what En Sabah Nur had felt for Selene, that had made him defy his own principles just for her? 

“You don’t get a say in this,” Charles exhales, reaching a hand up to frame the side of Erik’s face and feeling Erik’s stubble scratch at his palm, a pleasant graze. Erik nuzzles the palm of his hand, his mouth twisted in a fierce look of desperation. “You heard them, there’s no proven mortal weapon that can get to him. If he gets to me-” 

“You’re an omega level telepath,” Erik snarls, fierce with his eyes shining in a strange sort of intensity. _“I’m_ an omega level metallokinetic. You think we can’t take down one mutant between the both of us?” His mind is flashing full of images- Charles standing over those men in the ship, Charles mouthing off to Essex and Kelly, Charles breaking through the compulsion En Sabah Nur had formed to get through to Erik. The images are rose-coloured, framed with respect and awe and something else that Charles recognises in himself, has come to recognise the more time he spends with Erik.

Charles lets his hand drop, swallowing roughly. Erik doesn’t let him leave, though, hands tugging him even closer. “You’ve never dealt with this before,” he reminds Erik gently. His cheeks feel hot, both from the proximity and from the implications of the death sentence forming over his head. En Sabah Nur might have him, and he won’t have a single choice in the matter. “You can’t promise me that you would protect me.”

“And you can’t talk like you’re already lost to me,” Erik croaks. There’s a strange film over his eyes, the strong line of his jaw tight with rage and desperation as his fringe once agains falls over his eyes and makes him look younger than ever- and even then he still looks heartachingly beautiful. How could Charles had ever predicted that this wild beast of a man, uncaged and gorgeous, would worm his way into his heart like this? “I _am_ going to protect you. I’m not letting you go. Not now, not ever-”

Maybe it had been the madness of knowing En Sabah Nur could take him away at any moment, maybe it was just the heat in Egypt, the darkening skies above them spelling doom and disaster- or maybe it was the images in Erik’s head, the recognition that Charles felt the same in his own. Whatever it is, it makes Charles go on the tip of his toes, entwine his arms around Erik’s neck, and pull him in for a kiss that makes his toes curl. Erik growls, and then wraps his arms around his waist even tighter, wrenching him up even more until his feet damn well leave the ground before slamming him against one of the cylindrical pillars of the corridor. He wrenches his lips away from Charles, mouthing down the side of his neck. Charles throws his head back and covers his mouth with one hand, gasping, pretty sure he’s about to make a mess of himself right there against a wall in the open space of the corridor as arousal burns low in his gut.

“You have no idea,” Erik growls, worming one hand up Charles’ shirt and tweaking at a nipple, swallowing his moan, “no _idea_ how insane you drive me. You- you and your fucking, your fucking lilac shirts-”

“I may have some idea, yes,” Charles says, considering whether it would be polite to grab his arse during the very first kiss before deciding to hell with it and grabbing two handfuls of it anyway. Erik growls again, guttural and low and so fucking sexy, before returning back to his lips again, taking them powerfully as if staking his own claim.

Kissing Erik is- transcendent. It’s surreal, it’s a fantasy, it’s everything and nothing like how Charles had imagined it to be. Kissing Erik is rough and soft, a rollercoaster of a ride and the gentlest boat ride possible, the storm and the calm in one. Kissing Erik is _beautiful,_ Erik’s lips are like the softest of feathers as he coaxes Charles’ mouth open, sinking his teeth into the pillow of Charles’ bottom lip, running his tongue along the roof of Charles’ mouth, taking all that is Charles and giving back even more as he runs one hand down Charles’ thigh, the other down to the front of his pants. Kissing Erik, Charles thinks, feels like striking fucking gold-

Fucking gold. _Gold._

Charles draws away from Erik with a gasp, Erik’s spittle clinging to his lips in a thin string as he falls back on the balls of his feet and leans away from Erik who frowns in bemusement. “Shaw,” he gasps.

Erik blinks at him, his face stunned and almost horrified. “Wow,” he says, dry. “That man really does do his best to ruin every aspect of my life.”

“No, Erik, I meant- the Book of the Living. The book said to be made entirely of gold,” Charles says excitedly. “If the Book of the Dead brought En Sabah Nur back to life, it stands to reason that the Book of the Living- its direct opposite- will send him back to the underworld. I don’t know where it is, but Shaw might! You said so yourself, he’s been obsessed with ancient artefacts, he’ll definitely know where it is.”

Erik regards him carefully, eyebrows drawn together in consternation. “Charles,” he says carefully, running a hand down Charles’ arm, the other one still buried in his hair. “I don’t know if he’d willingly tell us. He’s with that asshole now.”

“He will if you bring him to me,” Charles says urgently, feeling the first stirrings of hope in his chest. They could fix this. _He_ could fix what he so callously started. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“No,” Erik murmurs, his eyes wide. They briefly flick down to Charles' lips and then back up again, as he flushes slightly. His arms fall from where they’d been holding Charles and Charles steps back, the sudden cold disconcerting now. “No, posh boy. I suppose you aren’t.”

“Right,” Charles blows out a breath, steeling himself. “We have a plan. Right.”

Erik inspects him for a second, so severely that Charles feels himself flush. Erik had the ability to do that, just look at him and make him feel intensely exposed and bared. “What?” he asks, meaning to snap but it ends up sounding much more softer than he’d meant it to.

“Nothing,” Erik says eventually, his eyes guarded and his lips still shiny with spit. His thoughts are racing a mile a minute, too fast for Charles to catch up on- he just gets glimpses. _So beautiful did kiss mean anything not the right time god he’s so beautiful-_

“I’m sorry,” Charles squeaks, and slaps a hand over his mouth. Immediately Erik turns beet red, as he says, “you heard all of that?”

“Yes,” Charles says, and hesitates. “Erik…”

“We don’t need a name for it now,” Erik says quickly, and then picks his hand up, brushing his mouth over his knuckles. Charles feels the touch, as intense as fire. “We picked the worst time we could have possibly picked.”

Charles’ heart sinks. So that had been it, then- just something in the heat of the moment, fleeting and impulsive. He should have known better, should have-

“You’re your own man,” Erik continues, intense as he continues to hold Charles’ hand, rubbing circles over the back of his hand. “Not En Sabah Nur’s, not mine. But I _will_ protect you like you belong to me. Like you deserve.”

Charles exhales a breath. His cheeks feel like they’re on fire, and he licks his bottom lip, Erik’s taste sweet on his tongue. Erik just keeps _looking_ at him, dark and heated. Charles- feels wrung out dry, his heart aching and torn into shreds, his body alive from what he’s just experienced. He knows he’s fucking gagging for it, knows he wants Erik’s hand back on his hip, Erik bearing him down onto the grass of the courtyard beside them, Erik kissing him and touching him and sliding into him with his body and soul and heart, damn the situation and the consequences. He _wants_ Erik, so much that he didn’t think it was possible to do so, so much that he feels like he might explode into sparks at any second.

“I want that,” Charles says hoarsely. “I want to- I want to belong to you. I want you to belong to me, too.”

Erik smiles, wide and beautiful. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he tightens his grip on Charles’ hand, staring at him in the corridor with that dark, intense look in his eyes. And in this tiny space of just the two of them, they exist, a separate entity from everyone else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep Not ending on a cliffhanger but that will change, i promise <3 
> 
> there's a very squint-and-you-will-see-it hint in here for a sequel to this story. idk if i Will write a sequel but honestly this has been pretty fun to write and i know ill miss writing this disaster duo once i stop so who knows :D 
> 
> if you liked this chapter, leave me a comment + kudos they will encourage me to write faster!! :D as always hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ROBBIETURNCR) or [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/himbomcavoy)


	5. part v: the (admittedly terrible) plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> apologies for how this chapter ends lmao
> 
> tw for canon-typical violence, one non-consensual kiss (if you've seen the movie you know what this is alluding to)

**_Erik_ **

“It’s a sound plan,” Irene says as they sit in a cab on the way back to the military base. Charles and Erik had detailed the plan to the rest after being back from their mini break, to which they had acquiesced. “Klaus Schmidt- I’ve heard his name in circles. Crazy man.”

“That’s certainly one word for him,” Erik mutters, shifting a little on his seat. Charles is next to him, dozing with his head slumped on Erik’s shoulder and projecting a light, dreamy haze of exhaustion that’s settled over all the occupants in the car. Erik’s caught himself yawning a few times too, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins feels far too strong to allow him to catch a few winks as well. Charles has got one hand tightly holding Erik’s own too, the fingers interlaced together in a tight, inescapable network, the other loose at his side. 

Erik hadn’t meant to kiss him, back at the university. They were literally in the middle of an apocalypse, after all- they couldn’t afford distractions.  _ He  _ couldn’t afford distractions, no matter how pretty eyed or impulsive or fiery they were. But Charles had surged up, desperate and hopeful and true, his eyes shining with his tongue doing that damnable swipe over his bottom lip and Erik would like to see a far stronger man than him resist  _ that.  _ He has spent about a week in Charles’ presence now, and yet he feels as if Charles has always been there his whole life, the touch of him burning on his skin like an everlasting reminder, his gasps echoing in his ears like a haunting bell. This  _ thing  _ between them feels so fragile, so new, and yet Erik doesn’t know how he’s lived this long without it, lived so long without knowing what Charles looks like when he’s happy, when he’s upset, when he’s annoyed and when he’s terrified. 

He can still feel Charles on his lips, the weight of him resting easy between his palms. Charles, Erik thinks, is the worst of vices. 

“I am sorry for what he did to you,” Irene continues, tapping her fingers on the headrest in front of her. Raven’s in the front seat, out cold and deep asleep, which Erik is actually grateful for. When Erik and Charles had come back from that corridor she’d caught on instantly, either from the goofy grin Charles had been sporting or the way Erik had his arm wrapped around Charles’ waist, unwilling to leave his side. She had then proceeded to give a wolf whistle before bounding over to badger Erik for a high five that he’d promptly rejected. He’d finally had to step in when Raven had asked Charles for  _ "details, Charles, is he rough or is he a total gentleman?"  _ and Charles had looked scarily enough like he was considering actually answering her in full.

Moira had chosen to stay in the university, citing that she wouldn’t be of much use against any undead mummies hanging around. “Get the Book of the Living, and I’ll help you translate it,” she had instructed Charles, who’d looked adorably indignant at the implication that he wouldn’t be able to translate it on his own. “I’ll be at the local museum's archives, in the meantime. They must have something that can possibly help us.”

“What would you know about what he did to me?” Erik scoffs now, glaring at Irene. 

“I’m a pre-cog, Lehnsherr,” Irene says, tapping at her temple while continuing to stare ahead. She brushes a few strands of her hair that had escaped from the tight knot at the back of her head behind her ear before turning in the direction of where Erik’s voice had come from, an apologetic look “I get visions, and you must know- you are about to face Shaw again, very soon.” 

Her words are severe and a cold sliver of unease enters Erik, making him go stiff with anticipation. “And it will be for the last time, I assure you,” he mutters, lifting his hand to stroke down Charles’ arm, who mumbles something that sounds a lot like  _ unicorns  _ and cuddles in closer to him. 

“And besides that,” Irene says, her voice now more derisive, “people talk, you know. Shaw is infamous for working with people who disappear mysteriously, never to be seen again, thus leaving him with the fruits of their labour. He is a despicable man, thinking only of himself and only of the glory that comes with cheating others out of it.” She pauses, her lip pursing in a strangely hesitant manner. “Months ago, I saw you and Shaw- well, you, Raven, Shaw and Charles- running from this strange lit room fit to be in a palace for a king.”

That makes Erik jerk up in his seat, staring at her as Charles shifts, making a noise of dissent before settling again. Maybe Irene got faulty visions, because there will never be a world where Erik will voluntarily do anything together with Shaw. Even the potential of working with Shaw feels abhorrent. “Shaw and I are never doing  _ anything  _ together,” he snaps, the old rage rising within him at the mere thought. He’d kill himself first, before deigning to ever work with the likes of a homicidal, psychopathic maniac, completely devoid of moral values like Shaw. Erik remembers, with sudden stark clarity, how he’d fought him back at the base as Shaw had dodged every single move with a laugh. He had been almost inhuman, not even a mutant anymore, high on power as he’d stopped every blow and dealt it back twofold, as he’d taunted about the helmet he’d been wearing being foolproof against even telepaths. Erik’s ribs are still smarting at the reminder. 

“I don’t control the future, Erik,” Irene says, her tone dry and caustic. She takes her hair out of the tight knot it is in, letting it all loose with a sigh. It flows over her shoulders and down half of the way down her midriff, shimmering in the low light of the cab. Like this, she looks almost ethereal. “I only get told what it is through visions I can’t control myself.”

That must be where Irene’s pre-disposed feelings for Raven had come from. Erik wonders if it would be proper decorum to ask Irene about Raven, and then decides to hell with decorum. “So, your visions about Raven-”

“All I saw was this beautiful woman, in this magnificent blue form, fighting off zombies. And then I saw that same woman and myself in a big, old mansion in some unknown land, a baby boy in her arms.” Irene smiles softly as if in reminder, her hand briefly heading towards the headrest Raven is resting on before withdrawing it again. She coughs slightly, turning pink before twisting a lock of her hair around her index finger and then letting it bounce free. “You must understand, I kept getting visions of her- this beautiful, witty woman, who walked like she owned the earth and was completely unashamed of it, who protected with a fierceness in her and gave much more of herself than she ever got back. I was enthralled.” There’s a split second of silence, and then Irene adds, “I saw you and your young man, too. You were protecting him from En Sabah Nur, in the chamber right next to the feet of Anubis. You screamed in that monster’s face, and that’s when I knew you were someone to look out for.” She smiles softly, adding, “Xavier was looking at you like you were his moon and stars. His whole world, as if he was simply awed by just the presence of you, as if he would have done anything to stay by your side for a second longer. I woke up from that vision in tears.”

Erik’s heart squeezes as he refuses to look at Charles, a warm weight against his side. Instead, he shifts, drawing back against the seat of the cab until he has enough space to put an arm around Charles without waking him up, tugging him even more against himself. He rubs concentric circles on the jut of Charles’ elbow, wondering if it would be worth it to ask Irene the question that has been burning in his gut since they left the university, before turning to look out of the sky. There’s flashes of fire and lightning, the entire expanse of the firmament above pitch-black and foreboding. An altogether unnatural sight, definitely heralding the beginning of the apocalypse. It’s frightening to think of the possibility of it lasting- the Earth as they knew it ceasing to exist, overtaken and overwhelmed by a nightmarish existence. If this plan of theirs failed, if En Sabah Nur got to Charles before they could get to the Book of the Living, Erik knows there would be much, much more dire consequences than the obvious. He’s unused to playing a game with stakes this high, he thinks as Charles rubs his cheek on his shoulder, mumbling something that sounds like Erik’s name this time. Before this, before meeting Charles in a dingy prison in Cairo and subsequently falling ass over heels in love with him, he’s always played for himself. “Do we succeed?” he finally asks, the question tripping over his tongue. 

“That, Lehnsherr,” Irene says, her voice now soft and apologetic as she reaches over to attempt to pat his knee and getting Charles instead, “is one question I will never get the answer to.”

“Right,” Erik mutters, irritated. As he watches, the sky briefly lights up with another streak of lightning, someone in the distance shrieking at a high pitch. “Good to know.”

There’s another pause, before Irene snorts. “You non pre-cogs, all the same,” she scoffs, waving a hand dismissively in the air, a look of disdain on her face. “Always asking me if you’ll win, if you’ll be triumphant, if you will live, if you will die. The future is  _ shifting,  _ Lehnsherr. Constantly, with every decision we make. There are mutants who time travel, too- I once met a lovely little thing who went five minutes back in time to avoid knocking over a vase she’d broken. The second she did that, a vision I’d received before came back to me in a different form.” She leans forward, curling her hand over Raven’s shoulder and smiling when Raven leans her cheek on the back of it, sighing softly. “I do not sit in front of a crystal ball and tell you what’s about to happen- a terrible stereotype for pre-cogs, and I cannot do that, anyway. I just relay what I see, and even that I do not see very well.” She turns her head slightly to the right, not looking at Erik directly but clearly meaning to draw his attention anyway. “You would do well to focus on the present, instead of the what-ifs.”

Easier said than done. Irene, for all her pretty words and visions, will never know the true mind-numbing fear of possibly losing the one you loved to a fate worse than death. And yet, it’s ever present in Erik’s lungs like a black toxin, stealing his breath and rendering him useless with sheer, mind-numbing panic at times. Charles had been scared, in that corridor when he’d told Erik that he couldn’t possibly protect him as much as he wanted to, and the desolation in his eyes is something Erik would never forget. Erik’s arm tightens around Charles as he gives out another soft snore, and turns to look out of the window again. The sky is now orange, streaks of fire and lightning setting it alight. 

Choices, Irene had said, each leading you on a different path. Erik looks down at Charles, at the soft brown hair flopping over his forehead, the way his lashes flutter in his sleep. He makes a decision, right then and there, that he’ll protect this man- even against himself if he has to. 

They reach the base shortly after, Erik inching to the side slightly and waking Raven up with a kick to the back of her seat, watching her curse and howl at him with unholy satisfaction before waking Charles up in a far gentler manner. He gives all of them about fifteen minutes to freshen up before they are to reconvene, right outside his and Charles’ room. “I have a plan,” he tells Charles, as Charles pulls on a full-sleeved white button-down that belongs to Erik, therefore resembling temptation itself and making Erik’s mouth water. He buttons up and leaves his neck wide open, his hair still dark and damp from a very hasty shower, and Erik can’t resist pressing a quick kiss to the pulse on his neck, watching the skin turn red. 

Erik changes too, clipping on a new pair of suspenders and a shirt, trying in vain to ignore Charles’ hungry gaze as it roves from his face down to his waist, making him feel rather stripped bare and naked. “I have a plan,” he says determinedly again, as Charles sidles in and slides his hands dangerously close to Erik’s ass, grinning up at him rather cheekily. “Or at least- the bare bones of a plan.”

“Bare bones is better than nothing, darling,” Charles says breezily, and then leans up, pressing a quick kiss to Erik’s lips before darting away again. His smile is soft and unbearably fond, the look in his eyes completely besotted. Erik wants to watch him like this forever. “May I hear it?”

“In front of everyone,” Erik amends, as he brushes the back of his knuckles against Charles’ cheek, watching fondly as Charles nuzzles his palm. “Promise me you’ll hear me out.  _ Listen _ to me, Charles,” he adds, dropping his hand to curl around Charles’ elbow, tugging him in. 

Charles watches him carefully, his eyes keen and assessing before he finally nods. “Alright, Erik,” he says. “I’ll listen.”

*

“I will most definitely _not_ listen!” Charles shrieks at an exceedingly high pitch, actually stomping his foot down as Erik stares back in consternation. It’s not like he’d expected Charles to take it lying down but still, Charles had _promised-_

Charles takes another step back, shaking his head vigorously when Erik opens his mouth to argue. “No, no- fuck you, Erik! You’re not going to keep me locked up- locked up like some- damsel in distress!” He folds his arms, glaring and pouting and looking like if he could he’d set Erik on fire right then and there. 

“I am not coming either,” Essex says quickly, glaring as well and folding his arms. Erik turns his withering glower onto him and he shrinks back slightly, gulping before carrying on with whatever inane excuse he’s about to give. “Look, I opened the chest, so that scary dude is gunning for my ass. I don’t wanna get killed by him, man! Who the hell made  _ you  _ the authority of everything, anyway?”

“I think the plan is awesome, by the way,” Raven quickly adds, raising her hand. “I’m with you, bro.” She turns and throws Irene an exaggerated wink, who turns a ridiculous beet red and coughs into her hand. Erik feels a little like screaming at the lot of them.

“Thank you, Raven,” he mutters instead, pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave off the migraine that's slowly building at the base of his skull. He can feel Charles’ eyes on him, seething and indignant, the righteous and defensive rage pouring off him in waves.

The plan is pretty simple- the bare bones of a plan, as Erik had told Charles. “They want the Book of the Dead, and we have it, so we give it to him,” he had said, gesturing to the exact book that’s currently locked tight inside Charles’ suitcase. “Raven, Essex, Irene and I are going to spread the word that we want a deal with En Sabah Nur, because he’s got to have converted some of the little shits they have pretending to guard the base here.” Some of them had looked exceedingly shifty, refusing to meet either Erik’s or Charles’ gaze directly when they’d reached the base, ducking out of their line of sight as fast as they could. Erik doesn’t know what can be worth betraying your own species- then again, humans have always been exceedingly selfish. “We say we’re only willing to talk to Shaw, no one else, and that’s guaranteed to get him to meet us, one-on-one.”

“Shaw’s allied himself with En Sabah Nur now, though,” Charles had countered, frowning. “What if he brings him along?”

“Shaw’s a flight risk,” Erik had snorted, remembering. Shaw, after all, was just as exceedingly selfish as the humans he so detested for that same trait- in fact, even more so. He cared for no one but himself, put absolutely no one above the importance of saving his own skin, not even during that brief period of time when he’d been in love with Emma Frost, the memory of which Erik would prefer scrubbing his brain of due to all those eye-searing images of Shaw all over the very much disinterested woman. All those years Erik had been with him had shown him exactly the kind of fanatical, self-centred, egotistical maniac Shaw was. “He’s with the guy, sure, but I can tell you that he doesn’t give a single fuck about En Sabah Nur beyond what he can do for him. The Book of the Dead has other incantations than bringing the dead back to life, something Shaw undoubtedly wants to get his hands on because he likes nothing more than gaining even more power. I guarantee you the lure for Shaw would be far too great.”

“Alright,” Charles had acquiesced, eyes glinting sharply as he’d laid a hand gently on Erik’s forearm, stroking his skin gently with his thumb before letting go. Erik had taken a deep breath, the rapid rate of his heartbeat calming down at Charles’ touch. “So what do I do? You’re not really bringing the book of the Dead to him, are you?” 

“Absolutely not, it’s too valuable to lose,” Erik had said, before nodding to the pile of books Charles had graciously pilfered from the resources section in the military base the day before. “We’ll get some of those and disguise it as the book. The real book, will be- well.” Here, he had hesitated. He’d known all the steps of the plan in his own mind, confident and true. The real problem, though, would be getting Charles to accept it. Charles, headstrong and stubborn and impulsive Charles, who would be sure to rage at him with all his might once he found out what the rest of the plan entailed and what his position would be in it. 

This though, was for Charles’ safety.  _ His _ protection, first and foremost, because Erik couldn’t stand to lose anyone else, not if he had a say in it.

“The real book?” Raven had prompted, although there had been a smirk playing on her lips as if she had cottoned on to exactly what Erik had been planning to do. Irene, too, had leaned forward, looking marginally more interested in the proceedings. 

“The real book,” Erik had paused, considering whether it would be worth it to lie. On the one hand, it would have the added advantage of Erik avoiding his ears getting blown off by Charles. On the  _ other  _ hand, he would never hear the end of it after this was all done- from both Charles and Raven. “The real book will be with you, Charles.”

“Oh, okay, that’s- easy,” Charles had said, looking slightly bemused. 

“While you stay in the bedroom, locked for your own safety to prevent anyone from getting to you,” Erik had added, and then quashed down the brief urge to dash for cover. 

There had been a split second of stunned silence, in which Charles had just stared at him, jaw hanging ajar and eyes wide with shock. And then they had narrowed rapidly in fury- the sight of which had been both gorgeous and a little bit terrifying- which brought them to now, with Charles glaring at Erik and his arms folded across his chest as he stood his ground.

“I don’t care,” Erik snaps, lowering his hand from the bridge of his nose to glare severely at both of them. “Fine, Essex, you stay here and guard Charles’ door. Raven, Irene and I will be able to handle Shaw just fine.”

“No, you won’t,” Charles snaps back, stepping forward jabbing a finger into the middle of his chest. He glares up at him, height difference not even affecting the way he seems to want to smack the apparent idiocy out of Erik. “I’m a telepath, you need me with you to control Shaw!”

“And Shaw has a psionic proof helmet that would prevent you from doing so, making you a liability to the rest of us when we’re trying to bring him in,” Erik says fiercely, knocking his hand away and ignoring the slightly stung look in his eyes. “Not to mention that En Sabah Nur  _ wants  _ you for himself, will take over the world if he gets to you and I absolutely refuse to take that risk if he comes with Shaw.”  _ I’m only trying to keep you safe, Charles,  _ he thinks with all his might as Charles frowns, his glare deepening all the more. There’s something besides the anger- a hurt sort of betrayal, Erik realises with a sinking feeling low in his stomach. 

_ You’re not. This is  _ not  _ the way you can protect me.  _ “Raven,” Charles barks, not moving his gaze away from Erik. From the side Raven startles from where she’d been watching the proceedings with an avid interest beside Irene. “Do you feel the same?”

“Charles…” Raven’s voice is hesitant, and Erik settles. She’s going to take his side- because at least she is smart enough to realise that Charles is in actual genuine danger, and they need to take steps to  _ curb  _ that danger. Why can’t Charles see that this- this absolute sort of protection- is best for him? Why can’t Charles see that all Erik wants is him, safe and whole? “He has a point. It’s dangerous for you right now. If he gets to you- all our fighting would have been for nothing.”

“Right.” Charles blows out a breath noisily through his mouth, turning to give her a fierce glare from which she flinches before wheeling around to focus it on Erik, who doesn’t. “Right. Excellent. So that’s it, then? I don’t get to have any of my own input?”

“I’m doing this,” Erik hisses, barely reining in his rage as he takes another step closer, menacingly towards Charles, who just continues to glare up at him and refuses to move away, “to protect  _ you.  _ I said I wouldn’t let En Sabah Nur get his hands on you. Stop being so fucking stubborn and let me  _ protect  _ you.”

“This isn’t me being stubborn!” Charles exclaims, exasperation clearly written all over his face as he throws his hands in the air. He curses loudly, rubbing furiously at his neck before looking away from Erik, his face twisted in a scowl and incandescent rage radiating so vividly off him that he’s definitely projecting it and affecting Erik a little. Tough for him- Erik’s fucking angry too. He’d promised to listen to Erik, and yet-

Erik shouldn’t be surprised. This is, after all, one of the things that draws him to Charles- his obstinate nature, his refusal to back down and accept that there were some things which he just did not have the superior opinion on. Without all that, without Charles right now, scowling off at the window with tension pouring off every limb on his body, he won’t be the man Erik loves so dearly with all his soul.

“This is not me being  _ stubborn,”  _ Charles finally says, his voice low and insistent as he turns back to look at Erik. “This is me cleaning up the mess  _ I  _ started.” He takes a step closer, and then again and again until he’s a mere hair’s breadth away from Erik, craning his neck up and staring deep into Erik’s heart, piercing his skin with just a gaze. This close, Erik can count every individual brown freckle on his nose, every individual white fleck in his vivid eyes. It doesn’t make the protective, possessive instinct in him die down a single bit. “I read out from that fucking book, I started the damn apocalypse, so I need to help you find Shaw and get the answers to stopping it. Erik,  _ please-” _

It’s the pleading note in his voice that does Erik in. Erik’s not the bad guy here- instead, he’s the guy who’s been trying to keep it together since day one of this entire disaster, he’s the guy who’s trying to keep the man who’s practically the love of his life safe from a raging homicidal undead maniac, he’s the guy to whom the responsibility of finding a proper way out has fallen to. Charles doesn’t see that- all Charles sees is Erik stopping him from doing whatever the hell he can, which rankles at Erik so much he feels like he might explode. “And what you don’t understand is that if we were playing a game of chess, you would be our king,” Erik snarls, taking Charles by the shoulders and shaking him roughly. “Do you get it? If we lose you to En Sabah Nur, if he gets to you, we’re all royally  _ fucked,  _ alright? I’m not doing this out of some macho alpha type power play, I’m  _ asking  _ you to stay here because this is the best decision to keep not just you but all of us safe! Do  _ you _ get that?”

For a split second, Charles just looks at him. The expression on his face softens imperceptibly, as he swallows roughly, eyes roving over Erik’s face. Erik exhales, almost feels that he’s finally gotten through to him, that Charles might actually listen to Erik like he’d promised to at the start and stay in the room.

That is, until Charles’ face hardens again and Erik’s heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach.

“No,” Charles says obstinately, folding his arms and glaring once again. “Let me come with you, or I swear, I’ll- I’ll- I will do something that will  _ hurt.  _ I can help, let me help!”

Erik very abruptly reaches the end of his rope and has had enough. Instead of replying to Charles’ very impassioned threat, he bends down and picking Charles up by the waist, throws him over his shoulder fireman style, his biceps flexing against the tight sleeves of his shirt with the effort it takes to hoist Charles up like that. Ignoring Charles beating down on his back with his fists and screaming-  _ “put me DOWN, Erik, fuck, you’re such a brute!”-  _ he storms into the bedroom and throws Charles down on the bed. Charles bounces once, twice, and stares up at him with a gobsmacked expression, the flush high on his cheeks, his shirt askew on his shoulder and showing off the reddened expanse of his collarbone. Charles is a lightweight- Erik had barely broken a sweat, carrying him and throwing him down like that.

Charles blinks up at him, mouth agape. His brown hair falls into his eyes, the top of his shirt hanging open, the sleeves pulled over his knuckles. He looks unfairly beautiful. It only serves to incense Erik further.

“Stay,” Erik snarls through his teeth, knowing his expression is probably doing something ferocious right now,  _ “here.” _

He doesn’t pause to see Charles’ reaction, spinning on his heel and leaving the room again. Once he’s out he crushes his hand into a fist in the air to make the doors slam shut behind him with a definitive thud that probably resounds across the entire base. He almost expects to hear Charles bang on the door and scream at him to let him out, but he hears nothing- only silence.

He’s not the bad guy here. He’s  _ not.  _ He’s just trying to protect Charles the best way he knows how. 

Erik exhales, straightening his clothes before looking up. All the occupants of the room are staring at him, even the damned white cat from earlier.

“If I didn’t agree with you,” Raven says conversationally, leaning against the window beside Irene, her face inscrutable, “I’d be ripping into you for manhandling my brother like that.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Erik retorts, before turning on Essex who actually takes a step back, looking terrified. He tosses Essex the key, watching with amusement as he fumbles with it before dropping it to the carpet, his fingers shaking. “You, stay here. Protect the door. Stay with the cat. If anything happens to Charles, I’ll break your fucking neck. You copy?”

Essex nods furiously, dropping into a chair by the door, and Erik turns to Raven and Irene- the latter of whom looks disappointed, lips drawn right and brows scrunched in a frown. Well, tough luck, Erik thinks irritably. It’s not as if anyone’s giving him better ideas, either.

“What are you two waiting for?” he barks. “Let’s move.”

*

In the end, Erik doesn’t even have to seek out Shaw. Shaw ends up finding them instead. 

They head down the walkway leading to the bar where Erik had stormed off to just hours ago- which had been today as well, Erik thinks with an unpleasant jolt- Irene and Raven talking behind him as Erik keeps his eyes and ears peeled for any sign of life. The corridor feels too quiet, too eerily still and utterly devoid of life. In direct contrast to the unusual stillness Erik’s heart is thundering in his ears, as if waiting in anticipation for something to happen. Thank god Charles is now out of danger, safely ensconced in the bedroom of their shared room. Maybe they are irreparably damaged now, and maybe Charles will never again look at him with that fondness, with that same trust and love in his eyes, but Erik can’t bring himself to regret it. Not if it keeps Charles safe from En Sabah Nur, not if it keeps him unharmed and whole.

“It’s a combination of echolocation and sharp senses,” Irene is explaining to Raven, who’d asked how she’d become such an excellent warrior. “I didn’t grow up in the Brotherhood- I was in an orphanage as a child, and then the previous leader saw that I had a tattoo on my wrist and brought me here.” There’s a rustle of clothing, before Raven is making appropriate noises of awe and respect. “You know,” Irene continues, her voice distant but reminiscent, “the other warriors of the Brotherhood told me my blind sight was a strength- that I was even more valuable as a result because my other senses had triplicated in power. They taught me how to focus on that, how to see even without having eyes. I owe everything to the Brotherhood.”

“Wow,” Raven says, sounding awestruck and more than a little bit in love. “You are  _ so  _ powerful. The first time I saw you, I thought you were an avenging angel.”

Raven was definitely laying it on a bit thick. Did Erik sound like this much of a fool when he was trying to get into Charles’ pants? Erik stomps ahead, suddenly feeling irritable at the thought that even Charles probably didn’t sound like this when he talked about Erik. He’d instead sound like there was nothing else in the world he wanted more than to take Erik’s head off.

“I don’t know about that,” Irene replies, sounding strangely flustered. “I mean, I’m alright-”

“No, no- what you do is amazing. The amount of control, the amount of training-  _ and  _ you’re a pre-cog! Don’t put yourself down like that for anyone. Be proud of who you are.” Raven’s voice is strong, cocksure and confident, and in spite of himself Erik raises an eyebrow in respect. It can’t have been easy, being born with a natural form like hers that was beautiful, yes, but unique. Maybe there was a story there that led Raven to where she is now- someone who took pride in her mutation.

Erik thinks of Charles, again, his inclination to apologise for peeking in Erik’s thoughts although he couldn’t help it. Raven’s confidence had somehow forgotten to bleed into Charles, and Erik’s ill-bred misconceptions couldn’t have helped- well, Erik knows better now. Erik will help him, even if Charles doesn’t want to be helped.

There’s a creak from the wall next to him, and Erik pauses, the two women immediately freezing as well. “Wait,” he says, holding a hand up, straining his ears. “I think I hear a-”

That’s when the wall explodes. 

The thing about Shaw, Erik has found out after being his apprentice for an odd decade or so, is this- Shaw is a force of nature. Everything he does is with aplomb, ceremony, more than a little bit of dramatics. It’s as if he thinks the world might crush him if he doesn’t crush it first. Right now, it’s really fucking evident in the way he’s just burst through the wall, smashing Erik through a solid wall of cement before finally slamming him down on the floor of what looks to be an office.

“Thought you could get one over me, did you?  _ Did you?”  _ Shaw snarls as both Irene and Raven scream, running through the wreckage after them. Erik blinks blearily up at Shaw’s ugly snarling face, his back throbbing from having been pushed very forcefully through solid wall and concrete only to roll over as Shaw’s fist slams down where his head had been. The floor cracks- actually  _ cracks,  _ Erik realises in no small amount of fear. How powerful, exactly, had En Sabah Nur made Shaw? 

“Get what over you, you fucking maniac?” Erik snaps, immediately ripping the metal pipes from within the wall and wrapping them around Shaw’s arms and legs, pulling them tight until he can feel his own muscles strain. Shaw struggles for a few seconds or so before finally breaking through the restraints with a snap, just to meet Irene’s scimitar with an armoured arm and a grin.

From there on, it’s chaos. Shaw’s fighting all three of them at once and somehow coming out on top- Erik’s bullets bouncing off his armour, dodging and knocking back each of Irene’s blows from the scimitar, parrying each of Raven’s punches back as she rains hits down on him in a dizzying array of blue fists and legs. Shaw’s special little mutation makes the fight even worse than it already is with his additional strength granted by En Sabah Nur- each blow he receives, he turns it around on them and deals back to them five times harder. 

“You don’t have the Book of the Dead,” Shaw jeers, and Erik freezes in his tracks. Irene takes advantage of it, rushing forward with her scimitar only to scream and fall back to the floor, knocking her head painfully on a spare bit of debris lying around as Shaw blocks her blow and shoves her back. “You wanted a bargain, didn’t you, my dear boy? Power, for information.” He levels a punch at Erik and Erik dodges it, twisting his fist in the air and wrapping a piece of metal around Shaw’s neck, squeezing it tighter and tighter until he feels it digging into the flesh. Shaw somehow doesn’t feel it even as he clenches it even more, and Erik feels agony burst along the muscles on his biceps as Shaw smirks at him before ripping the metal off his neck and scattering the broken pieces on the floor. 

“Pity,” Shaw says casually, swatting Raven away like a fly as she rushes at him, “the bargain would have worked. I do so love power.”

“Of course it would have worked,” Erik snarls, feeling the intense hatred he’s always had for the maniac in front of him course through his veins. He lets it power him, as he raises his arms and squeezes his eyes tightly, bringing every single metal filing, metal desk and metal cabinet down on Shaw, melting it all together and enveloping him in a tight metal shell, crushing it around him. He feels Shaw punch out at the metal and clenches his fist so hard the nail breaks skin and causes blood to drip from his palm down his wrist and onto the floor below, compressing the metal into an even tighter cage around Shaw. He’ll suffocate the location of the book out of him if he has to. “You only think about yourself, Shaw, no one else. Does your new  _ master  _ know that? That you’ll sacrifice him at the drop of a fucking hat the second you get the chance?”

“Oh, Erik, you’re a disappointment!” Shaw sings out from inside the cage, and then there’s a breathless second of silence before the cage vibrates and then explodes in a mess of flying shimmering metal shards. Raven shrieks, covering both her and Irene with a bit of debris and two of the shards slice up Erik’s arms before he can deflect them in time. Shaw runs full tilt at him and Erik doesn’t have the time or space to dodge, his head snapping back with a strangled yell as Shaw’s fist collides with his jaw, making it explode in fiery pain. He’s definitely going to sport a massive shiner for a good while. 

“I taught you to seek power!” Shaw roars, as he aims another kick at Erik’s ribs, an uppercut at his side. Erik staggers back, gasping in pain and clutching at the bruises. He can’t breathe, he can’t  _ breathe.  _ He was going to die here, with Shaw’s hits raining down on him, and everything, his entire life, would be for naught. “I taught you to crave glory. You, Erik, with your power and your energy and your manipulation of metal- you had so much more potential than your mother ever did!”

His mother. Everything in Erik grinds to an absolute halt.

“Don’t you dare,” Erik snarls, pushing up from the floor again and delivering a strong kick with all his might to Shaw’s left leg, making him fall to his knees, “ever,  _ ever  _ talk about my mother like that, you complete  _ psycho!”  _ He gets a hand around Shaw’s neck and pushes him down, knocking that stupid helmet right off before Shaw’s once again shoving him back, so hard he slams into the wall behind him. 

Erik isn’t deterred. The fury in his veins bolsters him now, makes him stronger than he could ever hope to be, turning him into the exact sort of monster Shaw had trained him to be. “You taught me nothing,” he snarls again, rushing at Shaw and jumping up to first kick him in the chest and then knee him in the face, feeling soft cartilage and bone crack against his kneecap as Shaw staggers back. He doesn’t stop, spinning on his foot to slam the heel of his other leg across Shaw’s face, watching with savage pleasure as Shaw’s face snaps to the side, blood spurting out of his mouth. Everything in Erik is on fire, the pain and the rage mixing into a melting pot of intensity that’s making him crackle with more energy than he’d had at the start of the fight. “You taught me to be a monster. That’s what you did, you fucking-”

He tries to send another kick at Shaw, falling painfully on his back when Shaw takes hold of his ankle and pushes him off with so much force he feels it reverberate through his entire figure. “I taught you to be better,” Shaw laughs as he gets a hand around Erik’s throat, shoving him to the ground and kneeling next to him. Erik chokes and chokes, his fingernails scrabbling along the sides of Shaw’s arms to no avail. His vision is tunnelling in, everything going a hazy red and gray and no, it can’t end like this, it  _ can’t. _ “I made you-”

“Fucking hell,” Irene says from behind Shaw, right before she smashes the butt of the scimitar into the back of Shaw’s unprotected head and causes him to flop onto the floor on his side, blissfully knocked out, “please do shut up.” 

“Thank you,” Erik rasps, rubbing the side of his neck and sitting up. Every inch of him hurts like hell- his ribs, his ankle, his head, his throat. He feels like he’s just gone through about a hundred bullfights in a row without stopping. Of course he’d known En Sabah Nur would have boosted Shaw’s powers a little, but this was insane. Raven is eyeing him warily from beside Shaw, the sleeve of her shirt torn and bleeding from a cut above her eyebrow, hand braced over her own ribs. 

“You let him get to you, Lehnsherr,” Irene says flatly, as she tugs Shaw up before slamming him none too gently against the front of the overturned desk. She hasn’t come out unscathed from the fight either, a long slash alongside her forearm steadily seeping blood and another bump on her forehead swollen and purple. “See that it doesn’t happen again.”

Erik bristles instantly, as he reforms the broken pieces of metal into ropes that are at least an inch thick, pinning Shaw’s arms to his torso and his legs together. “I didn’t let him get to me,” he snaps, as Raven stands quietly to the side, her silence speaking volumes. “He killed my damn mother, alright? I’m owed some anger, I think!”

“Not now you aren’t,” Irene retorts, voice harsh. She tugs at the ropes around Shaw, pulling them tighter, a fierce economy to her movements. “This is the fate of the entire world at stake now, and you would have let it be doomed just for the sake of a petty feud with this bastard.”

There’s a few seconds of silence where Irene’s words sink in, and even the woman herself winces, as if realising the callous nature of the words she’s just spoken. “Irene,” Raven says warily, as Erik tries his best to rein in the urge to go after Irene next, taking his anger out instead on the ropes constricting Shaw’s movement. “It was his mother.”

“I know, I apologise. That was indeed cruel of me, I didn’t mean it like that,” Irene says, apologetically and then blows out a breath noisily through her mouth, falling delicately to her knees and laying a hand on Erik’s arm, “but please, Lehnsherr- we cannot afford you to slip like that again. The world is-”

Erik snatches his arm out of her grip, glaring at her. “I’ve heard it before,” he growls. “You know, the more you say it the more it loses its meaning. I know, alright? I know the state the world is in right now.” Of course it would look ridiculous to Irene, his crusade for vengeance against Shaw, but what Irene simply refuses to get is that at one point, Erik’s mother had been his whole life. When Erik had been suspended after beating up a bunch of school bullies, his mother had been there to hand him an ice lolly before taking him to her office in the university and talking to him about a rare artefact that her colleague had discovered on a dig the other week. When Erik’s father had died unexpectedly in a plane crash, his mother had been there to catch him as he’d crumpled to his knees crying, even while she’d been sobbing her eyes out. When the grief of the news had finally triggered Erik’s mutation, every single metal appliance in the kitchen crushing in on itself, she had brought him to the local mutant centre, coaxed him to talk to the on site counselor and dried his tears, promising that the damage hadn’t even been that bad.  _ “Alles is gut, mein Schatz,”  _ she’d murmured into his hair, despite the fact that she herself had been shattered by the news of his father’s death as well. Erik’s mother had been  _ there,  _ there for him his entire childhood, and he was supposed to be there for the rest of his life but then Shaw had taken her away, and the agony of that grief is something Erik still feels like a fresh knife wound even after more than a decade, throbbing and gushing out blood at every wrong turn. 

“No you  _ don’t,”  _ Irene pleads, desperation leaking through her words. “We are in the middle of the fucking apocalypse, Lehnsherr. That’s the end of the world as we know it, and the start of a new world as dictated according to the mind of a psychopath and maniac. In fact, look- look out of the window, right now.”

All of them look. It does look like a bit of a disaster, if Erik’s being honest- the fires streaking across the sky have grown even larger and more intense, like rockets but with a far more nefarious form. Beyond that, the sky has turned into a dark, dull kind of red, the sort that’s obviously supposed to spell doom and dire consequences for all involved. It doesn’t look like a pretty sight, not at all. 

Raven walks over to the window, which had somehow escaped intact from the fight, and draws the curtain apart a little. There are throngs of natives walking across the city- eyes dull, movements robotic and forced, all in a similar sort of haze. Some of them are sporting humongous boils on their skin, swollen and pus filled- Erik swallows his bile down, feeling disgusted. Boils had been one of the ten plagues, from what he remembers his mother telling him. “If we are going to beat him,” Irene continues, her voice severe as Raven continues to watch the scores of hypnotized victims walking along below, hand over her mouth, “I need you to be hundred per cent on board. You will deal with your mother’s death later. But right now, I will ask too much of you, and ask that you sacrifice your own justice for the justice of the world. The ropes need to be thicker, he broke through them during the fight,” she adds, eyeing the ropes currently binding the still unconscious Shaw. 

“Fine,” Erik says, and then stretches out his senses, feeling for more metal. The next office has a few cabinets and he brings all of them crashing through the walls, scattering even more debris over the now hopelessly destroyed office they’re currently in as the cabinets crash to a stop in front of the three of them.

“Jesus Christ,” Raven snaps, from where she’d jumped out of the way of a flying bit of debris, brushing the dust of gravel off her clothes, “a little warning next time?”

“Oops,” Erik says insincerely, before turning to Irene. “I understand,” he says quietly. “It’s more than a feud for me. It’s my life’s work. But I understand.” He couldn’t care less about the world if he tried, this world that’s left him alone time and time again, but he did care about Charles- brave, reckless Charles, who’d kissed him in that corridor three hours ago and looked up at him with, above all things, trust. Charles is in danger, and Erik letting Shaw get to his head let that danger increase for him. Erik will push his own priorities deep below the list of considerations at present not for the world, but for Charles.

Irene nods, her eyes softening, and Erik directs his hand towards the new metal cabinets, slowly fortifying the ropes until they are at least a few inches thick. “How do we wake him up, then?” he sighs, leaning back. “We can’t just wait around for him to wake up.” They’d left Charles alone up there, after all, with no one but Stryker to watch him. Just the very thought of that makes Erik’s skin crawl. 

“No need, he’s waking up on his own,” Irene answers, feeling around and then drawing up a chair that had also escaped the melee intact, sitting on it and bracing the scimitar on her knee. 

“How did you- oh, you’re a precog,” Erik says to himself wondrously. It must be a terrible ability, to be able to know the future all the time. 

At his words, Irene snorts. “No, I just have ears,” she explains, and gestures with her head towards Shaw’s hands. “Heard his fingers twitch against the metal.”

As if on cue, Shaw’s eyes fly open. “Fancy this,” he drawls, as supercilious as ever even while tied down and held immobile against his will and  _ fuck  _ but Erik’s entire kingdom for the chance to shut him up forever, just once, “you finally have me at your mercy. Took you, Erik, only what- ten years?” He struggles against his bonds sluggishly, wincing when Erik raises his hands and tightens the bonds even further. 

“Shut it,” Raven says flatly, cutting in before Erik can intervene. She approaches Shaw and aims a solid kick across his jaw, standing back and watching with satisfaction as he curses foully and turns his head to the side to spit out blood. “Tell us where the Book of the Living is.”

“Really,” Shaw says balefully, as he picks his head back up again, glaring at Raven, “I thought we were going to make a deal. An eye for an eye, little girl.” To top it off, he leers at Raven, who glares back with a look full of disgust. 

“That’s before I spent what feels like a whole week fighting your ass in this room while my brother remains in danger from En Sabah Nur,” Raven snaps, and then thrusts her hand into her pocket, drawing out a sharp toothed dagger that makes Erik startle. Where had she even gotten that from? “You can forget any deal. I’ll torture the answer out of you if I have to.”

“You’re powerful too,” Shaw says, the slightest hint of regard in his tone as he eyes Raven head to toe appraisingly- and yes, even a little bit outrageously. Erik tamps down on the urge to pull Raven closer to him, knowing that the gesture would not go appreciated in the slightest bit. “He is not En Sabah Nur. He is Apocalypse, and he can help you. He will help us all, by creating a world of just mutants. No more humans, no more crimes committed against our brethren, no more living in  _ fear.” _

Apocalypse did have a point, Erik finds himself reluctantly thinking. 

“No, that’s a lie,” Irene says calmly, hand braced on her scimitar and the other on Raven’s back. “Apocalypse wants to build a world that plays by his rules, that sees him as king. In his world, Sebastian Shaw, you are but a pawn. Something he’ll easily discard when it suits him to do so.”

“And what would you know of kings and pawns, little girl?” Shaw scoffs, but his eyes are fierce with a tightness straining the skin around them- Irene’s hit the jackpot, Erik realises. En Sabah Nur would never be so altruistic as to want to build a world for the good of mutantkind. “You, who chained down a god who would have ruled over all of us just and fairly-”

“A god? Don’t make me laugh,” Irene spits, sounding truly angry for the first time since Erik’s met her. “No- Apocalypse is a deviant who tried to defy the very logic of nature by resurrecting his cunt of a wife.”

“You  _ dare-”  _ Shaw jerks forward as if to defend the virtue and honour of his benevolent master for whatever goddamn reason and feeling the irritation settle in deep, Erik flicks his fingers, attaching the ropes to the table. 

“Enough,” Erik snaps. “We’re not here to discuss politics or philosophies with you. Stop feeding us tripe and tell us the location of the fucking book before I yank it out of you.” So much for Irene telling him to get his head in the game, when she’s going off on her own tangent about how evil En Sabah Nur was and what not.

“Did I ever tell you, Erik,” Shaw says, eyes flashing, and that’s when Erik knows the next words coming out of his mouth won’t be any good, and probably won’t even answer the question of where the Book of the Living currently is, “how your mother begged for her life before she died?”

There’s a split second of silence where the words ring in the air, bouncing off the walls and then injecting themselves directly into the lobes of Erik’s brain, ingratiating themselves into his senses.  _ Right,  _ Erik thinks to himself, distantly and sort of humorously through the haze of red fury that’s slowly starting to settle in. Then Irene and Raven are rushing in, hands on his chest and pushing him back as he roars and lunges at Shaw. “You fucking  _ asshole!”  _ He raises his fist and spreads the fingers wide open, concentrating until there’s a sharpened spear heading right for Shaw’s face. 

Irene knocks it out with her scimitar as Raven curses foully, pushing Erik back even more until she’s shoving him right on top of his bruises from Shaw. “Erik,  _ stop it!”  _ she cries out, shaking him slightly as he coughs, rubbing his chest whilst in pain. “Calm down! He’s just winding you up!”

Irene suddenly lets Erik go, straightening up with an alert look in her face. “Yes, he is,” she says, with the air of someone on the cusp of discovering something. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say he has done nothing but wind us up.” 

“What the hell do you mean?” Erik asks, confused, but Irene ignores him, walking over to the desk and then dropping to her knees. She lifts the scimitar and rests it below Shaw’s jaw, pushing it in until a bead of blood appears and rolls down his neck. Shaw, Erik is gratified to see, is finally looking at least a little concerned for his life. 

“Lehnsherr asked you a question,” Irene says, her voice serene. “He asked, where is the Book of the Living? But you didn’t answer. You didn’t even gloat, slimy little insect that you are. Instead, you’ve been directing the conversation away as much as possible.”

Erik feels a stone drop into his gut at her words, and looks to Shaw for confirmation. Shaw’s shaking his head, already drawing up pompously with a retort on his lips but its his eyes that betray him, as they always do- they’re flitting everywhere in the room, nervous and uneasy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you stupid little-”

“Hurling insults at me will not help you,” Irene snaps, digging in the scimitar even further. “One swing downward and I’ll saw your cock clean off.”

Shaw falls silent, going white. 

“You don’t know the location of the Book of the Living,” Irene continues, her voice wavering slightly. Erik waits with bated breath, as Raven goes still beside him. “Do you?”

Shaw swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the blade of the scimitar, and the floating spears behind Erik drop to the floor with a resounding clatter, in tune with his shock. Raven takes a step back, her own mouth falling open. 

“You were a distraction,” Irene whispers, as if to herself. “En Sabah Nur is in the building right now.”

Shaw freezes for a moment, going so absolutely still it’s a wonder that he’s even breathing. His eyes have gone wide with panic, the blood now staining the armour that’s still on him. And then he abruptly relaxes, cackling loudly- the switch so instant Erik wonders if he’d even imagined the fear, Shaw’s entire face lighting up with a crazed kind of glee. “Pity,” he laughs, his voice loud and mocking, resounding through the entire room. “And to think I almost got away with it!”

“Charles,” Erik whispers, taking a step back. 

“That will always be the problem with you, my boy!” Shaw roars, throwing his head back and continuing to laugh, his entire body shaking with the force of it. “You never could see the big picture, could you? So fucking  _ full  _ of yourself, just like me!”

“Where is he,” Irene snaps, digging the scimitar in even harder. “Where’s Apocalypse!”

“Oh, where do you think, my dear woman?” Shaw says, still grinning maniacally. He turns to Erik, and smiles even wider. “Poor, poor little telepath. Dr. Charles Xavier, he who stole Apocalypse’s heart with just a look. Did he hear the window open, do you think?”

Erik takes another shocked step back, his mind wiped blank. No, he thinks. No, he kept Charles in that room, locked and safe, Charles was supposed to be safe, that had been the whole point of not bringing him along for this mission in particular-

Shaw continues to laugh. Erik stumbles back, and then calls the spears back to him in the form of metal balls, floating them over his fingers before shoving them in his pocket, stowing the rifles in his leather holsters. “Raven, with me,” he barks at Raven, who concedes with a nod and a terrified look, and then looks over at Irene who’s still holding the scimitar to Shaw’s neck. “Irene, will you-”

“Yes,  _ go,”  _ Irene snaps. Erik nods, turning on his heel and dashing out of the door. All his aches and pains from the fight have been forgotten, in place of one thought only.  _ Get to Charles. Get to Charles. Get to Charles. _

“Run, Lehnsherr, run!” Shaw calls out as Erik tears up the stairs, his voice following him like the tolling of a bell. “Before there isn’t anything left to save!”

Erik comes to the end of the corridor, about to ascend the steps when there’s a sharp agony lancing through his side. He hunches over, gagging and coughing until he spits a globule of blood and saliva onto the carpet. His throat feels like it’s on fire, his bruised ribs aching and definitely in need of attention. Raven comes to his side and he lifts his head, gasping. “I’m okay,” Erik gasps as he coughs out more blood onto the carpet. “I’m okay, just need a minute.”

“You’re  _ not,”  _ Raven snaps. “Look, if I carry you-”

“Absolutely not.” Erik inhales, and then exhales. He can do this. For Charles, he’d do anything- Charles, who’s fighting En Sabah Nur right now, who’s been fighting him for god knows how long. Three of them hadn’t been able to fare well against Shaw, and Charles had been alone. He takes another deep breath and then mentally uses the methods Emma Frost had taught him all those years ago, before she’d grown tired of Shaw’s antics and left of her own volition. 

“Telepaths, we dull our pain receptors, makes it easier for us to carry on,” she’d said, fingers on his temple. “You’re not a telepath, though. But you  _ are  _ a mutant, and a powerful one at that. What you can do is shove your pain into a section of your brain, compartmentalise it so that it doesn’t become an obstacle.”

“Pain is good,” Erik had argued, frowning as he’d followed the movement of Emma’s fingers. “Pain keeps you alive.”

“I never said it was a permanent solution,” Emma had retorted, rolling her eyes before tapping at the side of his forehead again. “But in the heat of the moment, pain can be a downright bitch when it comes down to it.”

Pain- specifically, the pain in his sides and in his throat- is definitely being a bitch right now. Erik straightens and concentrates, grabbing at his pain and shoving it into a tightly locked room like Emma had taught him to do, sequestering it inside the basement of the fortress in his mind and locking it tight. 

He opens his eyes again, catching Raven still staring at him warily. “Come on,” he urges, before dashing up the stairs again, the pain now a light thrum more than anything else. 

The door to the room is torn open. Cursing under his breath, Erik steps over the scattered debris of the doors that have been torn asunder, taking in each detail of the room- the unnerving quiet, the potted plants and couches turned over on their sides, Essex's wizened out husk of a corpse in the middle of the room with the white cat pawing curiously at it. 

Erik doesn’t pause for even a second. He knows that if he does, he might never move again. Instead, he bends down to grab the cat, ignoring its yowl, and kicks the door to the very conspicuously closed bedroom open. 

En Sabah Nur is in the room. He’s right there, sitting at the edge of the bed, his lips on top of Charles’ own,  _ kissing  _ him. And Charles-

Charles isn’t moving. 

_ “Hey!’”  _ Erik shouts, storming inside and brandishing the cat like a weapon. “Stay  _ away  _ from my boyfriend!”

En Sabah Nur turns around. Even as Erik watches, his skin is slowly grafting itself back together, blue leather-y skin knitting gratuitously over bone and the skin of his arms slowly reforming itself. He takes one look at the cat and screams, jaw unhinging wide to let out a truly unearthly sound, the tone of it bouncing off the four walls of the room and piercing through Erik’s skull. He disintegrates into sand, flying out of the window. Raven immediately bounds over to it, slamming the glass panes shut. “I  _ hate  _ that guy,” she gasps, leaning her back against the window.

Erik immediately runs to Charles’ side, skidding on the floor and crashing onto his knees. Charles is lying on his back, one arm hanging off the edge of the bed and the other looped loosely around his waist, the top few buttons of the shirt torn open. There’s fingernail marks on his temple that look like they have been gouged deep and are now bleeding sluggishly, and Erik knows if he looks, he’ll find blood beneath Charles’ fingernails. His eyelids remain closed as he lies eerily still on the bed, a bit of blood seeping out from his nose as well as the corner of his mouth. He’s almost- lifeless, the collar of his shirt gaping open to reveal how slow the pulse at his neck is. 

“Charles,” Erik gasps, reaching over and taking a hold of Charles’ shoulders, shaking him. Charles doesn’t respond, his head lolling about on the pillow, eyelashes creating crescent shaped shadows that appear black on his waxy skin. It looks as if the life has been quite literally drained out of him. 

Erik remembers the wizened husk of what used to be Nathaniel Essex in the living area outside the bedroom, and his heart trips over itself in abrupt fear. 

“No,” he snarls, leaning down and pressing his lips to Charles’ clammy and cold forehead, reaching up with his hand and brushing back Charles’ hair from his forehead. “No, you are  _ not _ doing this to me, you are not letting that bastard win-  _ Charles!  _ Wake  _ up!” _

Charles remains a prone figure on the bed, so still he may as well be dead.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then charles died and en sabah nur took over the world lol
> 
> KIDDINGJGJKG pls don't kill me
> 
> a few notes!   
> 1) according to the movie the last of the americans dies during the night chase scene right before evy gets taken by imhotep. in this fic ive killed off the last american early bc im lazy and selfish and dont want to deal with essex for any longer than i have to. en sabah nur still gets scared off by the cat bc he's gonna take a very significant period of time to fully regenerate which prob won't make sense irl but this is fanfiction not a documentary so  
> 2) the chapter count has been significantly increased bc i've decided to split up some action scenes over two chapters rather than fitting them all in one. charles' fight with en sabah nur (which he loses obviously) was supposed to be in this chapter but i decided to put it in the next one. i genuinely have no idea why this chapter is so long it was supposed to be at 7k words rip  
> 3) updates may be irregular from now on but ill try my best to post them once every week! 
> 
> as always pls pls leave me a comment and or kudos all your comments mean the world to me <3

**Author's Note:**

> a lot of the dialogue and plotline for this is adapted from the mummy 1999 and first class script. also updates for this will be regular, about every week or so. 
> 
> if u enjoyed this, please leave a comment + kudos because they encourage me to write faster! as always hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ROBBIETURNCR) or [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/himbomcavoy)


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